BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 
IN  SHAKE-SPEARE 


'A 


77? 


They  said  they  would  not  hear  of  Verulam  ; 
Forbad  my  tongue  to  speak  of  Verulam; 
But  I  'will  find  them  'when  they  are  asleep, 
And  in  their  ears  I'll  holla  Verulam ! 
Nay, 

I'll  have  a  starling  shall  be  taught  to  speak 
Nothing  but  Verulam,  and  give  it  them, 
To  keep  their  anger  still  in  motion. 


BACON 
CRYPTOGRAMS 

in 

SHAKE-SPEARE 

AND   OTHER   STUDIES 

By  ISAAC  HULL  PLATT 


Boston 

Small,  Maynard  and  Company 
1905 


Copyright,  1905,  by 

ISAAC  HULL  PLATT 

All  Rights  Reserved 


Published  August, 


Rose  Valley  Press 
Rose  Valley,  Pennsylvania,  U.  S.  A. 


In  this  band  of  scholars,  dreamers  and  enquirers,  appears  the  most 
comprehensive,  sensible,  originative  of  the  minds  of  the  age,  Francis 
Bacon,  a  great  and  luminous  intellect,  one  of  the  finest  of  this  poetic 
progeny,  vuho,  like  his  predecessors,  vjas  naturally  disposed  to  clothe 
his  ideas  in  the  most  splendid  dress ;  in  this  age,  a  thought  did  not  seem 
complete  until  it  had  assumed  a  form  and  color.  But  <what  dis- 
tinguished him  from  the  others  is,  that  'with  him  an  image  only  serves 
to  concentrate  mediation.  He  reflected  long,  stamped  on  his  mind  all 
parts  and  joints  of  his  subject;  and  then,  instead  of  dissipating  his  com- 
plete idea  in  a  graduated  chain  of  reasoning,  he  embodies  it  in  a  com- 
parison so  expressive,  exact,  transparent,  that  behind  the  figure  <we 
perceive  all  the  details  of  the  idea,  like  a  liquor  in  a  fair  crystal  vase. 

This  is  his  mode  of  thought,  by  symbols,  not  by  analysis ;  instead  of 
explaining  his  idea,  he  transposes  and  translates  it — translates  it  entire, 
to  the  smallest  details,  enclosing  all  in  the  majesty  of  a  grand  period, 
or  in  the  brevity  of  a  striking  sentence.  Thence  springs  a  style  of 
admirable  richness,  gravity  and  vigor,  novj  solemn  and  symmetrical, 
nonu  concise  and  piercing,  alvoays  elaborate  and  full  of  color.  There 
is  nothing  in  English  prose  superior  to  his  diction. 

Shakespeare  and  the  seers  do  not  contain  more  vigorous  or  expressive 
condensations  of  thought,  more  resembling  inspiration,  and  in  Bacon 
they  are  to  be  found  everywhere.  In  short,  his  process  is  that  of  the 
creators;  it  is  intuition,  not  reasoning.  When  he  has  laid  up  his  store 
of  facts,  the  greatest  possible,  on  some  vast  subject,  on  some  entire 
province  of  the  mind,  on  the  nuhole  anterior  philosophy,  on  the  general 
condition  of  the  sciences,  on  the  po*wer  and  limits  of  human  reason,  he 
casts  over  all  this  a  comprehensive  vievu,  as  it  vjere  a  great  net, 
brings  up  a  universal  idea,  condenses  his  idea  into  a  maxim  and  hands 
it  to  us  nuith  the  vjords,  "  Verify  and  profit  by  it." 

TAINE. 


2032474 


PREFACE 

So  many  and  so  startling  have  been  the  revela- 
tions promised  to  an  expectant  world  under  the 
title  of  Baconian  ciphers  and  cryptograms,  and  so 
far  have  they  fallen  short  of  realization,  that  it  is 
not  to  be  wondered  at  if  the  world  is  somewhat 
weary  of  the  subject.  Nevertheless,  there  are 
Bacon  cryptograms,  and  in  this  little  book  I  have 
attempted  to  demonstrate  some  of  them.  They 
are  very  simple  and  innocent.  They  raise  no 
social  question — they  pump  no  hidden  shame. 
They  deal  with  no  secret  marriages  in  the  Tower 
or  elsewhere,  nor  do  they  throw  the  slightest 
cloud  on  the  title  of  the  present  reigning  family  of 
England  to  the  throne.  They  may  be  merely 
curiosities  of  literature.  They  are  that  at  least 
and  as  such  I  bespeak  for  them  attention. 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  spoke  as  a  prophet, 
when,  fifty  years  ago,  he  declared  that  Miss  Ba- 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

con's  book  had  opened  the  question  so  that  it 
could  never  again  be  closed.  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes  spoke  as  a  prophet  when,  in  1883,  he 
said  that  the  wonderful  parallelisms  in  Shake- 
speare and  Bacon  must  and  will  be  wrought  out 
and  followed  out  to  such  fair  conclusions  as  they 
shall  be  found  to  force  honest  minds  to  adopt. 

I  do  not  care  to  follow  a  bad  example  and  call 
names — not  even  tu  quoque — but  when  Mr.  Sidney 
Lee  applies  such  terms  as  fools  and  madmen  to 
all  who  even  give  a  serious  hearing  to  the  Baconian 
hypothesis — a  group  including  not  only  such  men 
as  Emerson  and  Holmes,  but  Lord  Palmerston, 
Gladstone,  Bismarck  and  John  Bright;  and,  by 
implication,  those  who  have  expressed  doubts  as 
to  the  orthodox  views  regarding  the  authorship  of 
the  Plays:  Hallam,  Shelley,  Byron,  Coleridge, 
Lowell  and  many  other  famous  men  and  famous 
scholars,  to  say  nothing  of  such  eminent  jurists  as 
Judge  Webb  and  Lord  Penzance,  who  on  the 
ii 


PREFACE 

simple  ground  of  evidence  have  declared  for  the 
Baconian  authorship  of  the  Plays — when  Mr.  Sid- 
ney Lee  consigns  all  these  to  the  madhouse,  and 
calls  them  fools,  what  shall  we  say  of  Sidney  Lee  ? 
Nothing.  We  will  observe  the  Amenities  of  Lit- 
erature and  let  Echo  answer.  But  that  madhouse  ! 
As  a  club  it  would  rival  The  House-Boat  on  the 
Styx. 

A  short  time  since  I  wrote  a  brief  biography  of 
Walt  Whitman.  Among  the  notices  it  received 
there  is  one  I  cherish  as  a  gem.  It  is  this  : 

A  recent  unfortunate  literary  incident  will  go  a 
good  ways  toward  nullifying  the  respect  with 
which  Isaac  Hull  Platt's  Walt  Whitman,  in  Small, 
Maynard  and  Company's  admirable  Beacon  Biog- 
raphies, will  be  greeted.  In  the  November  num- 
ber of  The  Conservator  Mr.  Platt  expresses 
the  opinion  that  the  astonishing  "  fake "  word 
"  honoriricabilitudinitatibus,"  in  Love's  Labour's 
Lost,  may  be  interpreted  to  mean  that  Francis 
Bacon  wrote  the  so-called  Shakespearean  dramas. 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

Such  conduct  is  a  rude  shock  to  one's  critical 
faith.  If  Mr.  Platt  proposes  to  stand  as  the  spon- 
sor for  that  kind  of  rubbish,  why  may  not  his 
biography  of  Walt  Whitman  prove  equally  silly  ? 
Any  new  defense  of  the  Baconian  theory  puts  a 
man  in  the  position  of  the  ingenious  Ignatius 
Donnelly  or  the  still  more  cryptic  Dr.  Beven. 

The  remarkable  aspect  of  the  situation,  how- 
ever, has  now  to  be  unfolded.  Mr.  Platt  is  at  the 
same  time  deluded  and  sane.  If  common  sense 
will  peremptorily  ridicule  the  absurd  Shakespeare 
anagram  it  cannot  do  aught  but  applaud  Mr. 
Platt's  temperate,  loyal,  vivid  and  vastly  interest- 
ing biography  of  the  "good  gray  poet."  The 
author  is  an  avowed  and  enthusiastic  Whitmanite 
and  yet  has  not  permitted  his  ardor  to  interfere 
with  the  plain  truth.  Considering  its  noteworthy 
brevity,  his  account  of  the  life  of  the  author  of 
Leaves  of  Grass  leaves  little  to  be  desired.  It  is 
singularly  complete.  When  Mr.  Platt  writes  of 
Whitman  he  is  apparently  just  as  sensible  as  he 
is  foolish  when  igniting  the  Bacon-Shakespeare 
fuse. 


PREFACE 

I  rather  like  that  last  expression,  "igniting  the 
Bacon-Shakespeare  fuse."  Twenty  years  ago  I 
was  called  a  lunatic  for  lending  an  attent  ear  to 
Whitman.  So  the  whirligig  of  Time  brings  in  his 
revenges,  and  who  can  name  the  lunatics  of  twenty 
years  to  come  ? 

In  regard  to  the  "  ab  spelled  backward  "  con- 
undrum in  Love's  Labour's  Lost,  I  will  quote 
the  note  from  Dr.  Furness's  Variorum : 

Ba]  Halliwell :  This  dialogue  is  constructed  on 
the  actual  mode  of  the  elementary  education  of 
the  time,  which  has  been  partially  continued  to 
the  present  day.  That  this  is  the  case  is  seen  by 
the  following  instruction  given  in  the  Ludus  Liter- 
arius  or  the  Grammar  Schoole,  1627,  p.  19 — ft  Then 
teach  them  to  put  the  consonants  in  order  before 
every  vo  well  and  to  repeate  them  oft  over  together; 
as  thus :  to  begin  with  b,  and  to  say  ba,  be,  bi,  bo, 
bu.  So  d,  da,  de,  di,  do,  du.  .  .  .  When 
they  can  doe  all  these,  then  teach  them  to  spell 
them  in  order,  thus  ;  What  spells  b-a  ?  If  the 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

childe  cannot  tell,  teach  him  to  say  thus  ;  b-a,  ba ; 
b-e,  be ;  b-i,  bi.  .  .  .  Then  aske  him  againe 
what  spels  b-a,  and  he  will  tell  you ;  so  all  the  rest 
in  order." 

This  is  unquestionable  as  far  as  it  goes  but  it 
does  not  give  the  answer  to  Moth's  conundrum, 
and  I  have  yet  to  hear  of  any  spelling  book  or  any 
treatise  on  pedagogy  that  touches  the  subject  of 
spelling  ab  backward  with  the  horn  on  his  head. 
The  answer  to  the  conundrum  may  be  found  on 
page  thirty-two  of  the  present  brochure. 

The  Northumberland  MSS.,  mentioned  in  these 
pages,  were  discovered  in  1867,  but  they  have  re- 
mained in  the  seclusion  of  the  library  of  the  Duke 
of  Northumberland,  at  Alnwick  Castle,  in  North- 
umberlandshire,  and  of  course  inaccessible  to  the 
general  public  until,  in  1904,  they  were  reproduced 
in  collotype  facsimile  under  the  direction  of  Mr. 
Frank  J.  Burgoyne,  Librarian  of  the  Lambeth 
Public  Libraries.  This  document  Dr.  Appleton 


PREFACE 

Morgan,  in  New  Shakespeareana,  calls  the  Ro- 
setta  Stone  of  the  Baconian  controversy,  and  it 
would  seem  that  the  orthodox  Shaksperians  them- 
selves recognize  and  are  afraid  of  the  startling  and 
revolutionary  character  of  its  evidence.  It  was 
reviewed  in  The  London  Athenaeum  for  August 
27, 1904,  to  the  extent  of  three  pages,  the  reviewer 
going  to  the  minuteness  of  analyzing  the  editor's 
sources  of  information,  which  he  claims  in  some 
cases  were  extraneous  to  the  MSS.  themselves, 
but  the  fact  of  prime  importance,  the  juxtaposition 
of  the  names  of  Bacon  and  Shakespeare  and  the 
names  of  their  productions,  which  is  the  truly 
surprising  thing  about  the  book,  its  sole  claim  to 
importance  and  the  raison  d'etre  of  its  reproduc- 
tion, he  slurs  over  with  bare  mention  in  a  single 
line.  This  is  an  example  of  scholarly,  orthodox 
criticism  where  the  Verulam  problem  is  concerned. 
If  any  one  phenomenon  similar  to  these  men- 
tioned in  these  pages  in  regard  to  Shake-speare, 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

but  not  connecting  his  name  with  that  of  Bacon, 
had  been  noted,  the  commentators  would  have 
vied  with  one  another  to  trace  out  its  final  ramifi- 
cations, but  the  mere  mention  of  Bacon's  name  is 
treated  with  derision  and  not,  as  it  should  be,  with 
an  honest  attempt  to  examine  and  weigh  evidence. 
This  is  surely  not  the  true  critical  spirit.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  assume  at  present  that  "  Bacon  wrote 
Shake-speare,"  but  it  certainly  is  necessary  in  the 
interest  of  honest  criticism  and  fair  play  to  make 
a  strenuous  effort  to  determine  the  reason  for  this 
continual  association  of  their  names.  It  is  to  this 
spirit  of  honest  criticism  and  fair  play  that  I  make 
my  appeal. 

The  chapter  on  the  cryptograms  in  Love's 
Labour's  Lost  and  that  on  the  probable  relation  of 
William  Shaksper  to  the  Plays  have  appeared  dur- 
ing the  last  year  in  The  Conservator,  Philadelphia. 

So  much  confusion  exists  in  regard  to  the  spell- 
ing of  the  name  Shake-speare  that  a  word  in 

VIII 


PREFACE 

reference  to  the  system  I  have  adopted  may  not 
be  out  of  place.  The  actor  spelled  his  name 
Shaksper ;  in  the  records  of  Stratford  it  is  spelled 
in  various  ways,  Shaxpur,  Shacksper,  &c.,  but 
always  with  the  first  syllable  short.  On  title-pages, 
the  name  of  the  author  is  invariably  spelled 
Shakespeare  or  Shake-speare,  except  in  the  case 
of  Love's  Labour's  Lost,  where  it  is  spelled 
Shakespere ;  but  always  the  first  syllable  is  long. 
I  therefore  spell  the  name  of  the  actor-manager 
Shaksper,  and  the  name  of  the  author  Shake-speare, 
and  use  the  corresponding  derivatives,  Shaksper- 
ian  and  Shakespearean.  By  this  I  neither  affirm 
nor  deny  the  identity  of  the  actor  and  author. 
That  is  the  question  at  issue ;  but  so  long  as  it 
is  at  issue  I  shall  not  consider  that  any  ref- 
erence on  the  part  of  contemporaries  or  others  to 
Plays  or  Poems  of  Shakespeare  or  Shake-speare 
is  any  evidence  of  the  identity  of  the  author  with 
the  actor.  It  is  a  pen  name  in  any  case. 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

Since  the  first  part  of  this  book  was  written  I 
have  learned  that  the  reviewer  in  the  Quarterly 
Review,  referred  to  on  page  seventeen,  is  Mr. 
Andrew  Lang,  who  has  since  elaborated  his  review 
into  a  rather  long  essay  which  is  the  subject  of  my 
final  chapter. 

I  have  not  attempted  to  give  a  synopsis  of  the 
pro-Bacon  argument ;  that  is  too  voluminous  for 
the  limits  which  I  have  assigned  to  myself.  I 
have  undertaken  simply  to  present  certain  facts 
which  I  have  observed,  with  mention,  when  it 
seemed  necessary,  of  correlated  facts  observed  by 
others.  The  literature  of  the  subject  is  volumin- 
ous enough  already.  The  case  on  its  merits  is 
sufficiently  well  stated  in  the  works  of  Judge 
Holmes,  Mr.  Edwin  Reed,  Judge  Webb  and 
others  ;  I  only  add  my  mite  in  the  interest  of  fair 
play. 

My  attention  has  been  called  to  a  new  work  by 
Mr.  Tudor  Jenks,  In  the  Days  of  Shakespeare. 


PREFACE 

Mr.  Jenks  seems  to  be  quite  orthodox,  yet  he 
makes  the  concession  that  "young  men  in  need 
of  money  and  with  a  taste  for  writing  worked  for 
the  theaters  then  as  they  work  for  the  periodical 
press  now.  .  .  .  Francis  Bacon  was  very  likely 
to  have  been  one  of  these.  We  know  that  he  pre- 
pared masques  and  pageants  and  revels  for  Grays' 
Inn  festivities  ;  we  know  he  was  long  a  barrister 
in  need  of  money  and  with  little  practice.  No 
doubt  he  did  what  so  many  men  of  his  time  are 
known  to  have  done,  used  his  pen  to  earn  money 
from  theatrical  managers.  .  .  .  Gray's  Inn  was 
famous  for  its  masques  and  revels.  Francis  Ba- 
con, we  are  told,  was  long  the  presiding  genius  of 
the  Inn,  and  wrote  masques  for  their  festivities 
besides  directing  them.  Here,  then,  is  a  locality 
where  Shakespeare  may  have  come  in  contact  with 
the  great  philosopher."  Now  there,  for  once,  is 
an  honest  way  of  treating  the  matter.  Some  more 
concessions  of  that  kind  may  lead  to  the  highway 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

to  the  truth.  With  such  concessions  it  is  only  a 
matter  of  degree.  But  how  many  of  the  Verulam 
jewels  got  imbedded  and  which  are  they  ? 


CONTENTS 

Introductory           ....         .         .                  .         .  1 

The  Bacon  cryptogram  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost     ...  16 

The  Bacon  cryptogram  in  the  Shake-speare  Quartos       .         .  41 
A  suggestion  as  to  the  probable  relation  of  William  Shaksper 

to  the  Shake-speare  plays         .    , :    .       •  .<        ?         .         .  51 

Testimony  of  the  First  Folio         .         .         . .  '     .         .         .  62 

An  orthodox  defense      .         .         .    •     »        .         .         .         .  88 

Did  Marston  and  Hall  read  the  Quarto  monograms  ?      .         .  105 

An  afterword .  117 


INTRODUCTORY 

What  I  am  about  to  say  in  the  following  pages 
I  do  not  regard  as  controversial.  I  shall  not  con- 
tend that  "Bacon  wrote  Shake-speare"  nor  offer 
any  argument  in  the  Bacon-Shake-speare  contro- 
versy— unless  a  plain  statement  of  facts  of  easy 
verification  shall  be  considered  an  argument.  I 
have  used  the  expression  "Bacon-Shake-speare 
controversy  "  because  it  is  generally  accepted,  but 
I  am  in  doubt  whether  that  can  be  properly  called 
a  controversy  in  which  one  side  presents  evidence 
and  the  other  only  calls  names.  Whether  or  not 
the  believers  in  the  Baconian  authorship  of  the 
Plays  ought  to  be  inside  or  outside  of  the  mad- 
house may  be  the  subject  of  an  interesting  dis- 
cussion on  its  own  merits  but  it  does  not  seem 
likely  to  give  us  any  information  as  to  who  wrote 
Hamlet  and  Lear. 

What  I  here  offer  is  simply  the  result  of  obser- 
l 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

ration.  I  shall  offer  no  attempt  at  explanation, 
and,  in  order  to  avoid  controversy  at  present 
irrelevant,  I  wish  distinctly  to  deny  that  what  I  am 
about  to  present  proves  Bacon's  authorship  of  the 
Plays.  What  I  do  claim,  and  I  think  in  reason,  is 
that  they  seem  to  constitute  grounds  for  a  very 
strong  suspicion  that  he  was  in  some  manner  con- 
cerned in  their  production  or  associated  with  them. 
If  I  am  right  in  this  it  would  appear  to  open  a 
reasonable  and  interesting  field  of  investigation  to 
students  of  English  literature. 

The  odium  scholasticum  of  today  seems  to  follow 
very  closely  in  the  tracks  of  the  odium  theologicum 
of  a  generation  or  two  ago.  Nobody  today  even 
hints  at  burning,  hanging,  or  even  putting  into 
a  madhouse,  those  misguided  people  who  have 
doubts  that  the  apparent  motion  of  the  sun  was 
stayed  awhile  at  Joshua's  command  or  that  the 
whale  made  a  meal  upon  Jonah,  but  to  the  mad-' 
house  with  those  who  have  doubts  in  regard  to  the 
2 


INTRODUCTORY 

truth  of  a  literary  tradition  decidedly  less  well 
authenticated ! 

My  presentation  of  the  facts — orvagaries — which 
follows  may  show  me  to  be  more  puzzled  in  ignor- 
ance than  the  Egyptians  in  their  fog,  but  that  is 
beside  the  point ;  what  I  want  to  know  is  what  it 
all  means. 

Before  pointing  out  any  of  my  own  discoveries — 
or  vain  imaginings — I  shall  call  attention  to  a  few 
of  like  nature  which  have  already  been  pointed 
out,  because  in  dealing  with  a  case  which  in  its  very 
nature  depends  upon  circumstantial  evidence,  the 
more  that  can  be  adduced  in  corroboration  the 
better.  I  shall  not,  however,  go  into  any  discus- 
sion of  the  Donnelly  and  Gallup  ciphers,  for  the 
reason  that  they  are  at  present  in  too  chaotic  a 
state  to  yield  any  satisfaction.  As  for  Mrs.  Gal- 
lup's,  no  one  but  she  seems  to  be  able  to  distinguish 
the  differentiation  of  type  upon  which  it  is  founded, 
and  her  cipher  story  is  so  improbable  in  itself  as 
3 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

to  require  an  absolute  demonstration  to  warrant 
belief  in  it.  On  the  other  hand,  however,  in  the 
book  called  Baconiana,  or  Certain  genuine  Remains 
of  Sir  Francis  Bacon,  &c.,  &c.,  published  in  1679, 
in  the  Introduction,  by  Thomas  Tenison,  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  it  is  distinctly  inferred  that 
a  cipher  such  as  is  described  by  Mrs.  Gallup — fol- 
lowing Bacon's  own  description — does  exist  in 
Bacon's  Advancement  of  Learning,  edition  of 
1623.  The  passage  from  Dr.  Tenison's  Introduc- 
tion is  as  follows:  "The  fairest,  and  most  correct, 
Edition  of  this  Book  in  Latine,  is  that  in  Folio, 
printed  at  London,  Anno  1623.  And  whoever 
would  understand  the  Lord  Bacon's  Cypher,  let 
him  consult  that  accurate  Edition.  For,  in  some 
other  Editions  which  I  have  perused,  the  form  of 
the  Letters  of  the  Alphabet,  in  which  much  of 
the  Mystery  consisteth,  is  not  observed:  But 
the  Roman  and  Italic  shapes  of  them  are  con- 
founded." 

4 


INTRODUCTORY 

In  regard  to  Mr.  Donnelly's  cipher  the  case  is 
somewhat  different.  His  failure  to  give  an  intel- 
ligent interpretation  of  it  has  caused  it  to  pass 
almost  out  of  notice,  but  nevertheless,  in  the 
course  of  his  investigations,  he  did  show  some 
curious  facts,  which  have  never  been  gainsaid, 
about  the  arrangement  of  the  text  of  the  First 
Folio,  in  reference  to  the  pagination  and  the  posi- 
tion of  certain  words,  and  their  numerical  relation, 
which  are  strongly  suggestive  of  a  cryptic  signifi- 
cance. The  talk  about  "mere  coincidence"  is 
mere  nonsense.  If  a  pistol  bullet,  removed  from 
the  body  of  a  murdered  man,  is  found  to  fit  an 
empty  chamber  of  the  prisoner's  revolver,  nobody 
dismisses  the  matter  as  "mere  coincidence."  It 
may  not  be  proof,  but  it  is  evidence. 

That  "was  a  time,"  as  Miss  Bacon  says,  "  when 

the  cipher,  in  which  one  could  write  omniaper  omnia, 

was  in  request — when  even  'wheel  ciphers'    and 

*  doubles'  were  thought  not   unworthy  of  philo- 

5 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

sophic  notice.  It  was  a  time,  too,  when  the  phon- 
ographic art  was  cultivated  and  put  to  other  uses 
than  at  present,  and  when  a  nom  de  plume  was  re- 
quired for  other  purposes  than  to  serve  as  the 
refuge  of  an  author's  modesty  or  vanity  or  caprice. 
It  was  a  time  when  puns  and  charades  and  enigmas 
and  anagrams  and  monograms  and  ciphers  and 
puzzles  were  not  mere  sport  and  child's  play  :  when 
they  had  need  to  be  close  and  solvable  only 
to  those  who  should  solve  them."  I  suppose 
no  one  will  venture  to  deny  it;  nor,  I  suppose, 
will  anyone  deny  that  the  brothers  Anthony  and 
Francis  Bacon  were  proficient  in  the  invention  and 
use  of  cryptic  writing,  and  that  they  carried  on 
correspondence  with  its  aid  ;  so  that  if  they  or 
either  of  them  had  anything  to  do  with  the  produc- 
tion of  the  Shake-speare  plays  there  is  no  improb- 
ability but  exactly  the  reverse  in  the  proposition 
that  cryptograms  were  used  there,  and  that  propo- 
sition would  not  be  invalidated  by  the  fact  that 

6 


INTRODUCTORY 

unsuccessful  attempts  have  been  made  to  discover 
and  read  them.  If  cryptic  allusions  are  actually 
found  in  the  Plays  and  Poems  they  would  seem  to 
be  matters  for  explanation  rather  than  for  ridicule 
and  sneers.  That  there  are  such  allusions  I  shall 
attempt  to  show,  and  I  shall  begin  with  a  very 
brief  review  of  some  of  the  allusions  to  "Bacon" 
in  the  Plays  and  Poems  which  have  already  been 
pointed  out  and  which  suggest  the  idea  that  they 
may  have  a  cryptic  meaning. 

The  word  "  Bacon"  itself  occurs  only  twice  in 
the  Plays  and  both  times  under  suspicious  circum- 
stances. The  passages  are  as  follows: 

Mrs.  Quickly  Hang-hog,  is  latten  for  Bacon,  I 
warrant  you. — Merry  Wives,  IV,  /. 

Second  Carrier  I  have  a  Gammon  of  Bacon,  and 
two  razes  of  Ginger,  to  be  delivered  as  farre  as 
Charing-crosse. — 1st  Henry,  IV,  II,  I. 

Mr.  Donnelly  showed  the  curious  fact  that  in 
the  Folio  "Hang  hog  is  Latin  for  Bacon"  occurs 

7 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

on  the  53d  page  of  the  Comedies,  and  "gammon 
of  Bacon"  on  the 53d  page  of  the  Histories  ;  also, 
that  the  word  "  Bacon,"  in  "gammon  of  Bacon/'  is 
the  371st  word  on  the  page,  excluding  from  the 
count  words  in  parentheses,  and  that  this  number 
is  equal  to  the  number  of  the  page,  53,  multiplied 
by  7,  the  number  of  italicized  words  in  the  first 
column,  7x53=371.  Apparently,  however,  he 
did  not  notice  that  the  word  "  Bacon,"  in  "  Latten 
for  Bacon,"  in  the  Merry  Wives,  is  the  795th 
word  on  the  page,  excluding  from  the  count  words 
in  parentheses,  that  there  are  15  italicized  words 
in  the  first  column  and  that  15x53=795. 

The  passage  in  the  Merry  Wives  occurs  in  a 
short  scene,  having  no  connection  with  the  plot  of 
the  play.  It  did  not  appear  in  the  Quarto  of  1602, 
but  for  the  first  time  in  the  Folio  of  1623.  It  con- 
tains a  pun  on  Bacon's  name  which,  strange  to  say, 
reappears  in  a  story  related  by  himself  which 
was  not  published  until  after  his  death,  which 
8 


INTRODUCTORY 

occurred  ten  years  after  Shaksper's  death.     It  is  as 
follows : 

Sir  Nicholas  Bacon  being  appointed  a  judge  for 
the  Northern  Circuit,  and  having  brought  his  trials 
that  came  before  him  to  such  a  pass,  as  the  passing 
of  sentence  on  malefactors,  he  was  by  one  of  the 
malefactors  mightily  importuned  for  to  save  his 
life ;  which,  when  nothing  that  he  said  did  avail, 
he  at  length  desired  his  mercy  on  account  of  kin- 
dred. "  Prithee,"  said  my  lord  judge,  "  how  came 
that  in  ?  "  "Why,  if  it  please  you,  my  lord,  your 
name  is  Bacon  and  mine  is  Hog,  and  in  all  ages 
Hog  and  Bacon  have  been  so  near  kindred  that 
they  are  not  to  be  separated."  "  Ay,  but,"  replied 
Judge  Bacon,  "you  and  I  cannot  be  kindred  ex- 
cept you  be  hanged,  for  Hog  is  not  Bacon  until  it 
be  well  hanged." — Bacon's  Apothegms,  No.  36. 

The  passage  in  Henry  IV  contains  a  pun  equally 
obvious;  "a  gammon  of  Bacon"  being  equivalent 
to  a  hoax  or  humbug  on  the  part  of  Bacon. 

On  the  53d  page  of  the  Comedies,  in  the  other 

9 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

column,  nearly  opposite  the  words,  "  Hang  hog  is 
latten  for  Bacon,"  is  this:  "Well  I  will  proclaim 
myself  what  I  am;"  and  on  the  53d  page  of  the 
Histories,  in  the  other  column,  opposite  the 
words,  "  I  have  a  Gammon  of  Bacon,"  occur  the 
words :  "  We  have  the  receit  of  Fern-seed,  we  walk 
invisible." 

It  has  been  said  that  the  two  passages  referred 
to  are  the  only  ones  in  the  Plays  in  which  the 
name  "Bacon"  appears.  It  may  be  well  to  add 
that  "  Bacon-fed  "  and  "  Bacons  "  both  occur  in 
the  First  Part  of  Henry  Fourth,  but  I  fail  to  dis- 
cover any  reference  to  the  proper  name  in  either, 
at  least  any  sufficiently  distinct  to  be  worth  men- 
tioning in  this  connection. 

In  that  exceedingly  clever  and  entertaining  book 
called,  Is  it  Shakespeare  ?  which  is  based  especially 
upon  a  study  of  the  Sonnets,  and  the  evidence  of 
Bacon's  hand  in  them,  the  ingenious  author  calls 
attention  to  the  twenty-sixth  Sonnet : 
10 


INTRODUCTORY 

Lord  of  my  loue,  to  whom  in  vassalage 

Thy  merrit  hath  my  dutie  strongly  knit; 

To  thee  I  send  this  written  ambassage 

To  witness  duty,  not  to  show  my  wit. 

Duty  so  great,  which  wit  so  poor  as  mine 

May  make  seeme  bare,  in  wanting  words  to  show 

it; 

But  that  I  hope  some  good  conceit  of  thine 
In  thy  souls  thought  (all  naked)  will  bestow  it : 
Til  whatsoever  star  that  guides  my  mouing, 
Points  to  me  graciously  with  faire  aspect, 
And  puts  apparrell  on  my  tottered  louing, 
To  show  me  worthy  of  their  sweet  respect, 
Then  may  I  dare  to  boast  how  I  doe  love  thee, 
Til  then,  not  show  my  head   where   thou   maist 

proue  me. 

"  This  Sonnet,"  the  author  goes  on  to  say,  "  as 
all  critics  admit,  has  an  interesting  and  remarkable 
resemblance  to  the  dedication  of  Lucrece  to  the 
Earl  of  Southampton  in  1594,  which  was  signed  by 
William  Shakespeare.  This  Sonnet  is  certainly 
11 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

addressed  to  some  one  in  high  position  ;  the  words 
•vassalage  and  ambassage  settle  that.  It  also  seems 
to  be  the  concluding  Sonnet  (L'envoi)  of  a 
sequence  (XVIII-XXVI),  where  deep  love  and 
admiration  are  expressed  for  a  high-born  youth, 
and  where  the  author,  although  he  rather  auda- 
ciously claims  immortality  for  his  verse  (S.  XVII), 
still  for  'fear  of  trust'  does  not  go  the  whole 
length  of  expressing  his  love,  or,  as  it  appears, 
even  his  name  as  yet,  but  the  verses  or  *  books' 
that  he  sends  are  to  be  the  '  dumb  presagers '  of 
his  ' speaking  breast'  (S. XXIII).  And  he  fin- 
ishes, in  this  last  Sonnet  of  the  sequence  (XXVI), 
by  hoping  that  his  young  friend  will  have  such  a 
'good  conceit'  of  the  bare  verses  sent,  that  he 
will  take  them  in  and  cherish  them  in  their 
nakedness;  and  then,  the  author  hints,  if  his 
stars  lend  auspicious  help  to  his  future  move- 
ments— 

Then  may  I  dare  to  boast  how  1  do  love  thee, 
12 


INTRODUCTORY 

Till   then  not  show  my  head  where   thou  may'st 
prove  me. 

Now  we  shall  see  how  the  author  lets  out  the 
great  secret  in  those  words  show  my  head.  This 
Sonnet  (XXVI)  naturally  leads  us  to  make  a 
closer  examination  of  the  dedication  of  Lucrece, 
with  which  it  is  evidently  connected.  The  dedica- 
tion reads  as  follows  : 

THE  RAPE  OF  LUCRECE 

TO   THE 
RIGHT   HONOURABLE     HENRY     WRIOTHESLEY 

Earle  of  Southampton,  and  Baron  of  Titchfield 
The  love  I  dedicate  to  your  Lordship  is  without 
end :  wherefore  this  Pamphlet  without  beginning 
is  but  a  superfluous  Moity.  The  warrant  I  have 
of  your  Honourable  disposition,  not  the  worth  of 
my  untutored  Lines,  makes  it  assured  of  accept- 
ance. What  I  have  done  is  yours,  what  I  have  to 
do  is  yours,  being  part  in  all  I  have,  devotedly 
yours.  Were  my  worth  greater,  my  duety  would 
show  greater  ;  meane  time,  as  it  is,  it  is  bound  to 
13 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

your  Lordship:  to  whom  I  wish  long  life  still 
lengthened  with  all  happiness. 

Your  Lordship's  in  all  duety, 

William  Shakespeare. 

Now  all  this  seems  plain  and  straightforward 
enough,  except  the  apparently  unmeaning  and  un- 
necessary remark  about  'this  Pamphlet  without  be- 
ginning' being  'but  a  superfluous  Moity.'  Such 
a  statement  naturally  leads  one  to  examine  the 
'beginning'  of  the  Pamphlet  in  its  first  edition  as 
presented  and  dedicated  to  Southampton,  and  lo ! 
Bacon  '  shows  his  head '  at  once,  for  the  first  two 
lines  are  headed  by  this  monogram 

FBR 

/.  e.  Fr.  B.,  which  may  well  be  called  also  a  super- 
fluous moity  of  Fr.  Bacon,  Fr.  representing  one 
half  of  his  name  with  the  superfluous  B  flowing 
over  from  the  other  half." 

The  first  two  lines  of  the  poem  are  printed  thus : 
14 


INTRODUCTORY 

FRom  the  besieged  Ardea  all  in  post 
Borne  by  the  trustless  wings  of  false  desire. 

Not  only  does  this  cryptogram,  Fr.  B.,  appear 
at  the  beginning  of  the  Poem,  but  the  signature, 
F.  Bacon,  at  the  end,  by  a  certain  peculiar  arrange- 
ment of  the  letter  F  in  "  Finis "  and  the  syllables 
"ba"  and  "con"  in  the  last  two  lines.  Of  course 
the  italics  are  mine,  but  the  F,  ba  and  con  are  so 
arranged  as  to  be  in  an  absolutely  straight  line  in 
original : 

The  Romans  plausibly  did  give  consent 
To  Tarquin's  everlasting  banishment 

FINIS 

For  a  full  explanation  of  these  curiosities  and 
others  of  a  like  character  the  reader  is  referred  to 
the  original  work.  They  are  mentioned  here 
merely  to  show  that  those  which  are  about  to  be 
described  do  not  stand  alone. 


15 


THE  BACON  CRYPTOGRAM  IN  LOVE'S 
LABOUR'S    LOST 

In  1897  I  sent  a  note  to  The  Conservator 
showing  that  the  curious  Hog  Latin  word  Honor- 
ificabilitudinitatibus  in  act  V  scene  1  of  Love's 
Labour's  Lost,  is  an  anagram  of  the  Latin 
sentence,  "Hi  ludi,  tuiti  sibi,  Fr.  Bacono  nati" 
which  may  be  translated,  "  These  plays,  origina- 
ting with  Francis  Bacon,  are  protected  for  them- 
selves," or  "  entrusted  to  themselves."  I  stated 
at  the  time  that  as  the  word  had  been  used  before 
the  appearance  of  the  play,  in  the  Lament  for 
Scotland,  for  instance,  the  existence  of  the  anagram 
would  seem  to  have  little  significance  were  it  not 
for  certain  concurrent  facts.  Some  of  those  facts 
I  set  forth  at  the  time  and  to  some  others  my  atten- 
tion has  been  called  since.  It  is  for  the  purpose 
of  setting  these  forth  and  bringing  all  together  that 
I  again  recur  to  the  subject.  In  order  to  present 
16 


IN  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST 

the  evidence  properly  it  will  be  necessary  to  re- 
capitulate, which  I  shall  do  very  briefly. 

Before  proceeding  I  might  say  that  the  note  was 
rather  extensively  quoted  at  home  and  abroad  and 
commented  upon — mainly  in  the  way  of  ridicule — 
and,  as  usual  in  such  cases,  garbled.  The  Quar- 
terly Review  did  me  the  honor  to  notice  it  with 
the  remark  that  the  anagramatic  sentence  "  is  mag- 
nificent but  it  is  not  Latin."  In  this  my  critic  was 
mistaken.  I  do  not  make  this  statement  on  the 
ground  of  any  scholarship  of  my  own,  but  on  the 
authority  of  eminent  Latinists  in  England,  Ire- 
land, Canada  and  the  United  States.  It  is  some- 
what unusual  but  perfectly  correct  Latin.  But 
there  is  no  need  to  discuss  Latin  grammar ;  the 
meaning  is  clear  enough. 

The  play  opens  with  lines  strikingly  suggestive 

of  a  sentence  in  a  letter  from  Bacon  to  Bishop 

Andrews,  which,  not  only  in  this  connection  but 

in  itself,  is  significant.     "  But  I  count  the  use  that 

17 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

a  man  should  seek  of  the  publishing  of  his  own 
writings  before  his  death  to  be  an  untimely  antici- 
pation of  that  which  is  proper  to  follow  a  man  and 
not  go  along  with  him."  And  they  are  almost 
equally  suggestive  of  a  passage  in  Bacon's  Ad- 
vancement of  Learning.  "  The  pretense  thereof  is 
to  remove  vulgar  capacities  from  being  admitted 
to  the  secrets  of  knowledge,  and  to  reserve  them 
to  selected  auditors,  or  wits  of  such  sharpness  as 
can  pierce  the  veil."  Moreover,  the  main  intent 
of  the  play  seems  to  be  to  ridicule  the  peculiar 
scholastic  learning  which,  it  is  well  known,  Bacon 
held  in  extreme  contempt.  These  of  course  are 
but  hints. 

I  shall  proceed  at  once  to  the  consideration  of 
the  scene  which  claims  our  attention,  the  first  of 
the  last  act ;  and  will  note  here  that  for  the  pur- 
poses of  our  investigation  a  modern  edition, 
amended,  corrected  and  improved  by  the  various 
editors,  is  of  no  value  whatever.  We  must  go  to 
18 


IN  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST 

the  Quarto  of  1598  or  to  the  Folio  of  1623 — which 
is  printed  practically  verbatim  from  the  1598 
Quarto — or  to  a  reprint  of  one  of  them. 

The  following,  which  is  as  much  of  the  scene  in 
question  as  we  shall  have  to  do  with,  is  reprinted 
verbatim  from  the  Quarto  of  1598,  which  is  the 
earliest  publication  of  any  play  bearing  the  name 
William  Shakespeare  on  the  title-page.  The 
Folio  of  1623 — which  is  the  next  edition — differs 
from  this  only  in  the  correction  of  a  few  obvious  mis- 
prints. The  quotations  following  are  from  the  Folio. 

Enter  the  Pedant,  the  Curat,  and  Dull. 

Pedant.  Satis  quid  sufficit. 

Curat.  I  prayse  God  for  you  sir,  your  reasons 
at  Dinner  haue  been  sharp  &  sententious  :  pleasant 
without  scurillitie,  wittie  without  affection,  auda- 
cious without  impudencie,  learned  without  opinion, 
and  strange  without  heresie :  I  did  conuerse  this 
quandam  day  with  a  companion  of  the  kings,  who 
is  intituled,  nommated,  or  called,  Don  Adriano  de 
Armatho. 

19 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

Fed.  Noui  hominum  tanquam  tey  His  humour  is 
loftie,  his  discourse  peremptorie :  his  tongue  fyled, 
his  eye  ambitious,  his  gait  maiestical,  and  his 
generall  behauiour  vaine,  rediculous,  &  thrasoni- 
call.  He  is  too  picked,  to  spruce,  too  affected, 
to  od  as  it  were,  too  peregrinat  as  I  may  call 
it. 

Curat.  A  most  singular  and  choyce  Epithat, 
Draw-out  his  Table-booke 

Peda.  He  draweth  out  the  thred  of  his  verbositie, 
finer  then  the  staple  of  his  argument.  I  abhorre 
such  phanatticall  phantasms,  such  insociable  and 
poynte  deuise  companions,  such  rackers  of  ortag- 
riphie,  as  to  speak  dout  fine,  when  he  should  say 
doubt;  det,  when  he  shold  pronounce  debt; 
debt,  not  det :  he  clepeth  a  Calfe,  Caulfe  :  halfe, 
haulfe  :  neighbour  vocaturnebour ;  neigh  abreuiated 
ne :  this  is  abhominable,  which  he  would  call  ab- 
bominable,  it  insinuateth  me  of  infamie  :  ne  inteligis 
domine,  to  make  frantique  lunatique  ? 

Curat.  Laus  deo,  bene  intelligo. 

Peda.  Borne  boon  for  boon  prescian,  a  litle  scratcht, 
twil  serue. 

20 


IN  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST 

Enter  Braggart,  Boy. 

Cur  at.   Vides  ne  quis  venit? 

Peda.   Video,  et  gaudio. 

Brag.  Chirra. 

Peda.  Quari  Chirra,  not  Sirra  ? 

Brag.  Men  of  peace  well  incontred. 

Ped.  Most  millitarie  sir  salutation. 

Boy.  They  have  been  at  a  great  feast  of  Lan- 
guages, and  stolne  the  scraps. 

Clow.  O  they  haue  lyud  long  on  the  almsbasket 
of  wordes.  I  maruaile  thy  M.  hath  not  eaten  thee 
for  a  worde,  for  thou  art  not  so  long  by  the  head  as 
honorificabilitudinitatibus :  thou  art  easier  swal- 
lowed then  a  flapdragon. 

Page.  Peace,  the  peale  begins. 

Brag.  Mounsier,  are  you  not  lettred  ? 

Page.  Yes  yes,  he  teaches  boyes  the  Horne- 
booke :  What  is  Ab  speld  backward  with  the 
home  on  his  head  ? 

Poda.  Ba,  peuricia  with  a  home  added, 

Pag.  Ba  most  seely  Sheepe,  with  a  home:  you 
heare  his  learning. 

Peda.  Quis  Quis  thou  Consonant  ? 
21 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

Pag.  The  last  of  the  five  Vowels  if  You  repeate 
them,  or  the  fift  if  I. 

Peda.  I  will  repeate  them  :  a  e  I. 

Pag.  The  Sheepe,  the  other  two  concludes  it  o  u. 

Brag.  Now  by  the  sault  wane  of  the  meditara- 
nium,  a  sweete  tutch,  a  quicke  vene  we  of  wit, 
snip  snap,  quick  and  home,  it  reioyceth  my  intel- 
lect, true  wit. 

Page.  Offerd  by  a  child  to  an  old  man :  which 
is  wit-old. 

Peda.  What  is  the  figure  ?     What  is  the  figure  ? 

Page.  Homes. 

Peda.  Thou  disputes  like  an  Infant :  goe  whip 
thy  Gigg. 

Pag.  Lende  me  your  Home  to  make  one,  and 
I  will  whip  about  your  Infamie  unu  cita  a  gigge  of 
a  Cuckolds  home. 

Clow.  And  I  had  but  one  peny  in  the  world  thou 
shouldst  haue  it  to  buy  Ginger  bread :  Holde, 
there  is  the  verie  Remuneration  I  had  of  thy 
Maister,  thou  halfepennie  purse  of  wit,  thou 
Pidgin-egge  of  discretion.  O  and  the  heavens 
were  so  pleased,  that  thou  wart  but  my  Bastard ; 
22 


IN  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST 

What  a  ioyfull  father  wouldst  make  me  ?  Go  to, 
thou  hast  it  ad  dungel  at  the  fingers  ends,  as  they 
say. 

The  scene  begins  with  a  conversation  be- 
tween the  schoolmaster  and  the  curate  and  the 
first  words  are,  "  Satis  quidsufficit."  Why  "  quid  " 
is  printed  instead  of  "  quod  "  I  do  not  know.  The 
text  is  full  of  apparent  errors  of  this  kind,  all  of 
which  have  been  carefully  corrected  by  modern 
editors.  The  words  "Satis  quid  sufficit"  are 
printed  in  italics,  and,  interspersed  through  the 
first  half  of  the  scene,  are  a  number  of  other 
Latin  sentences,  each  distinguished  from  the  body 
of  the  text  by  being  printed  in  italics.  Including 
the  one  already  mentioned  they  are  in  translation 
as  follows  :  "That  which  suffices  is  enough."  "  I 
know  the  man  as  well  as  I  know  thee."  "Do 
you  understand  me,  sir  ?  "  "  Praise  God  !  I  un- 
derstand well."  Then  comes  a  series  of  vocables 
— they  cannot  be  called  words  and  cannot  be  trans- 
23 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

lated,  because  they  are  meaningless — as  follows: 
"  Borne  boon  for  boon  prescian"  This  has  been  in- 
terpreted by  various  editors,  each  to  suit  his  own 
fancy,  some  changing  it  to  make  Latin,  some  to 
make  French,  some  giving  it  up  as  hopelessly  cor- 
rupt and  abandoning  it  altogether.  It  will  be  re- 
ferred to  again  further  on,  but  to  continue  the 
Latin  phrases  in  italics :  "  Do  you  see  who  comes  ? " 
"  I  see  and  rejoice."  "  Wherefore  ? "  Then  comes 
the  long  word,  honorificabilitudinitatibus,  which, 
while  not  exactly  classic  Latin,  is  easily  enough 
translated  thus  :  "  By  the  power  of  the  making  for 
honor,"  and  it  is  the  anagram  of  this  Latin  sen- 
tence which,  translated,  is :  "  These  plays,  origi- 
nating with  Francis  Bacon,  are  protected  for  them- 
selves," maugre  The  Quarterly  Review. 

As  has  frequently  been  pointed  out,  the  word 

in  a  slightly  different  and  shorter  form — honorifica- 

bilitudino  or  honorificabilitudine,  probably  the  latter ; 

the  final  letter  is  not  very  clear — occurs  on  the 

24 


IN  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST 

cover  of  the  famous  Northumberland  manuscripts, 
which  consist  of  a  part  of  a  manuscript  book  dis- 
covered in  Northumberland  House  in  1867,  and 
are  admitted  to  have  been  in  Bacon's  library.  The 
part  of  the  book  remaining  contains  a  number  of 
Bacon's  acknowledged  works.  On  the  cover  is  a 
table  of  contents.  In  this  table,  in  addition  to  the 
names  of  the  papers  by  Bacon,  which  the  book 
actually  contains,  there  are  listed  the  names  of  two 
Shake-speare  plays,  Richard  II  and  Richard  III. 
These  are  near  the  end  of  the  list ;  unfortunately 
the  corresponding  part  of  the  book  is  missing,  "  as 
rare  things  will,  it  vanished,"  and,  as  usual  when 
we  seem  to  be  approaching  anything  directly  con- 
nected with  the  relation  of  Bacon  and  Shake- 
speare, we  are  left  in  mystery. 

On    the    blank    spaces    of    the    cover    of   the 
Northumberland  MSS.  there  are  written,  in  a  con- 
temporary hand,  a  number  of  sentences,  phrases, 
words  and  parts  of  words,  including  the  names 
25 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

Bacon  and  William  Shakespeare,  several  times 
repeated,  and  oddly  mixed,  in  one  case  actually 
reading,  "  By  Mr.  Francis  William  Shakespeare 
Bacon,  Rychard  the  second,  Rychard  the  third." 
There  are  some  lines  of  Latin  verse  as  follows : 

Multis  annis  jam  transacts  y 
Nulla  fides  est  in  pactis, 
Mell  in  ore,  Verba  lactis, 
fell  in  corde,  ffraus  in  factis. 

"  Many  years  having  now  passed,  the  compact 
is  no  longer  binding — Honey  in  the  mouth,  words 
of  milk,  bitterness  in  the  heart,  fraud  in  the  deed." 
It  may  be  noted  here,  for  whatever  it  is  worth, 
that  on  the  second  of  April,  1597,  Rodolphe  Brad- 
ley wrote  to  Anthony  Bacon :  "  Your  gracious 
speeches  concerning  the  getting  of  a  prebend- 
shippe  for  me  ...  be  the  words  of  a  faith- 
full  friende  and  not  of  a  courtiour,  who  hath  Mel 
in  ore  et  verba  lactis,  sed  fel  in  corde  et  fraus  in 
factis." 

26 


IN  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST 

Then  there  is  aline  from  Shake-speare's  Lucrece, 
but  with  a  variant  in  the  last  word :  "  Reveal- 
ing day  through  every  cranny  peeps,"  followed 
by  the  words,  "  and  see  your  William  Shakespeare." 
And  there  is  the  long  word  already  mentioned 
(honor  ificabilitudine}  which  in  this  form  is  an  ana- 
gram of  "  Initio  hi  ludi  Fr.  Bacone,"  "  These  plays 
[are]  in  their  inception,  Francis  Bacon's."  This 
book  has  recently  been  published  in  a  photographic 
facsimile  reproduction  which  presumably  can  be 
seen  at  any  of  the  large  libraries. 

The  Northumberland  MSS.,  as  has  been  said, 
are  known  to  have  been  in  Bacon's  library  and  are 
in  the  handwriting  of  his  secretaries.  The  words 
on  the  cover  are  supposed  to  have  been  written  by 
John  Davies  of  Hereford,  he  who  about  1610  ad- 
dressed to  Bacon  this  sonnet: 

Thy  bounty  and  the  Beauty  of  thy  Witt 
Comprisd  in  Lists  of  Law  and  learned  Arts, 
Each  making  thee  for  great  Imployment  fitt 
27 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

Which  now  thou  hast,  (though  short  of  thy  deserts) 
Compells  my  pen  to  let  fall  shining  Inke 
And  to  bedew  the  Bates  that  deck  thy  Front; 
And  to  thy  health  in  Helicon  to  drinke 
As  to  her  Eellamour  the  Muse  is  wont: 
For  thou  dost  her  embosom  ;  and,  dost  use 
Her  company  for  sport  twixt  grave  affairs : 
So  vtterest  Law  the  liuelyer  through  thy  Muse. 
And  for  that  all  thy  Notes  are  sweetest  Aires ; 
My  Muse  thus  notes  thy  worth  in  ev'ry  Line! 
With  yncke  which  thus  she  sugars  ;  so,  to  shine. 

Here  we  have  a  direct  statement  (by  one  in  a 
position  to  know)  that  Bacon  was  beguiling  himself 
with  the  Muse  during  the  intervals  of  his  profes- 
sional and  philosophic  labors — a  statement  prob- 
ably by  the  very  man  who  wrote  those  curious  items 
on  the  MSS.  cover,  or,  to  be  rid  of  probabilities, 
certainly  either  by  him  or  by  one  of  his  fellow  sec- 
retaries. The  allusion  in  the  last  line  of  this  son- 
net to  Shake-speare's  "sugared  sonnets  among  his 
private  friends,"  seems  very  obvious. 
28 


IN  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST 

Now,  to  go  back  to  the  combination  of  syllables, 
Borne  boon  for  boon  prescian.  Immediately  following 
it,  in  Roman  text,  are  the  words,  "  a  little  scratcht, 
'twill  serve."  It  is  well  known  that  in  the  print- 
ing of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  a 
short  dash  or  "  scratch "  over  a  letter  indicated 
the  elision  of  a  letter  or  letters  which  should  follow 
it.  All  printed  matter  of  that  era  shows  it  on 
almost  every  page.  Some  time  after  the  publica- 
tion of  my  former  paper  on  this  subject  the  Rev. 
William  J.  Sutton,  of  Mungret  College,  Limerick, 
Ireland,  made  a  suggestion  in  The  New  Ireland 
Review  which  he  has  since  embodied  in  his  book, 
The  Shakespeare  Enigma.  It  is  this  :  The  inex- 
plicable line,  "  Borne  boon  for  boon  prescian"  is  an 
anagram  of  "  Pro  bono  orbis  F.  Bacon  e  nemo" 
which  makes  no  sense.  But  "  a  little  scratcht, 
'twill  serve."  We  put  the  little  scratch  over  the  e 
making  it  esfznd  it  reads  :  "Pro  bono  orbis  F.  Bacon  e 
[est]  nemo"  "For  the  good  of  all,  F.  Bacon  is 

29 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

nameless."  Taking  the  italicised  words,  and,  in- 
cluding the  two  anagrams,  they  read  thus :  "  That 
which  suffices  is  enough."  "  I  know  the  man  as 
well  as  I  know  thee."  "  Do  you  understand  me, 
sir  ?  "  "  Praise  God  !  I  understand  well."  "  For 
the  good  of  all,  F.  Bacon  is  nameless."  "  Do  you 
see  who  comes  ?  "  "I  see  and  rejoice."  "  Where- 
fore !  "  "  [  By  the  power  of  the  making  for  hon- 
or. ]  "  "  These  plays,  originating  with  Fr.  Bacon, 
are  protected  for  themselves."  "Who  is  it?  Who 
is  it?"  So  far  we  have  a  remarkable  concatena- 
tion of  enigmas,  but  we  have  by  no  means  finished. 
The  speech  of  Costard  to  Moth,  the  pert  little 
page,  and  his  reply,  are  as  follows : 

Clown  [  Costard}  O  they  have  liv'd  long  on  the 
almes-basket  of  words.  I  marvell  thy  M.  hath 
not  eaten  thee  for  a  word,  for  thou  art  not  so  long 
by  the  head  as  honorificabilitudinitatibus :  Thou 
art  easier  swallowed  than  a  flapdragon. 

Page  [  Moth  ]  Peace,  the  peale  begins. 
30 


IN  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST 

The  story  we  have  been  told  may  be  hard  to 
swallow,  but  not  so  hard  as  a  flapdragon.  A  flap- 
dragon  was  a  raisin  or  some  other  dainty,  floating 
on  ignited  brandy,  and  the  sport  was  to  catch  it  in 
the  mouth  and  swallow  it  while  the  brandy  was 
still  burning.  The  game  was  one  peculiar  to  Hal- 
loween or  Christmas  or  Twelfth  Night ;  I  will  not 
specify  which,  because  in  the  first  place  I  do  not 
know,  and  in  the  second  place  if  I  were  to  make 
a  mistake  I  should  be  held  up  to  ridicule  and  all 
my  statements  overthrown.  And  I  do  not  like 
ridicule ;  if  I  did  I  should  write  advocating  the 
Baconian  authorship  of  the  Plays.  But  to  proceed : 

Eragart  iArmado — to  Holofemes.]  Mounsier, 
are  you  not  lettred  ? 

Page  [  Moth  ]  Yes,  yes,  he  teaches  boyes  the 
Horne-booke:  What  is  Ab  speld  backward  with 
the  horn  on  his  head? 

Pedagogue  [  Holofemes  ]  Ba,  puericia  with  a  home 
added. 

31 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

Page  [  Moth  ]  Ba  most  seely  Sheepe,  with  a  home : 
you  heare  his  learning. 

Holofernes'  reply  does  not  seem  to  be  a  very 
satisfactory  answer  to  the  conundrum,  and  I  doubt 
if  I  should  have  guessed  it  if  the  hint  had  not 
been  dropped  in  a  letter  which  was  sent  to  me  by 
my  friend,  the  late  Dr.  Bucke,  from  Mr.  A.  Ans- 
combe,  suggesting  that  the  horn  might  refer  to 
some  mark  of  abbreviation.  I  take  this  occasion 
to  thank  Mr.  Anscombe — never  having  had  op- 
portunity of  doing  so  before — for  his  very  sug- 
gestive hint,  for  I  soon  found  that  a  horn-shaped 
mark  at  the  beginning  of  a  word — on  the  head — in 
Elizabethan  writing  and  printing,  stood  for  the 
syllable  con;  thus  3clave=conclave.  Any  diction- 
ary of  printing  will  verify  this  statement.  Then 
Ab  with  the  horn  on  its  head  is  3ab  and  back- 
ward it  is,  as  I  have  shown  in  New  Shakespeareana, 
ba;3=Bacon.  "  Coincidences  "  seem  to  be  galling 
one  another's  kibes  but  they  will  not  hold  off  yet. 
32 


IN  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST 

Next  comes : 

Pedagogue  [Holof ernes  1  Quis  quis,  [who  is  it — 
who  is  it  ?  ]  thou  Consonant  ? 

Why  was  Moth  called  a  "  consonant  ?  "  I  have 
sometimes  thought  perhaps — [con  sonansl — because 
he  was  sounding  with — or  interrupting — the  school- 
master ;  on  the  other  hand  it  may  be  because  he 
sounded  "con"  on  the  head  of  ab  backward, 
thereby  furnishing  a  somewhat  obscure  answer  to 
the  question.  Then  follows  this  : 

Page  [  Moth  ]  The  last  of  the  five  Vowels  if  You 
repeat  them,  the  fift  if  I. 

Pedagogue  [Holofernes]  I  will  repeat  them :  a  e  I. 

Page  The  Sheepe,  the  other  two  concludes  it  o  u. 

Braggart  [Armado]  Now  by  the  salt  wave  of 
the  medeteranium,  a  sweet  tutch,  a  quick  venewe 
of  wit,  snip  snap,  quick  &  home,  it  rejoyceth  my 
intellect,  true  wit. 

Page  Offered  by  a  childe  to  an  old  man :  which 
is  wit-old. 

33 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

Pedagogue  What  is  the  figure?  What  is  the 
figure  ? 

Page  Homes. 

Pedagogue  Thou  disputes  like  an  Infant:  goe 
whip  thy  Gigge. 

Page  Lend  me  your  Home  to  make  one,  and 
I  will  whip  about  your  Infamie  unum  cita  a  gigge 
of  a  Cuckolds  home. 

We  will  stop  with  unum  cita,  which  the  editors, 
pitying  Shake-speare's  ignorance  and  trying  to 
throw  a  cloak  over  it,  have  changed  to  circum  circa. 
Possibly,  however,  Shake-speare  meant  what  he 
said,  unum  cita,  which  I  will  render,  rather  freely, 
"  name  the  man. "  You  have  had  your  puzzle  put 
to  you — who  is  it? 

For  myself  I  cannot  tell,  but  in  reviewing  the 
scene  it  has  occurred  to  me  that  perhaps  if  the 
play  appeared  as  the  offspring  of  another  than  its 
real  father,  this  fact  might  account  for  the  refer- 
ences to  the  cuckold  and  explain  why  the  horn- 
34 


IN  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST 

shaped  mark  of  abbreviation  on  the  head  of  a  b  is 
called  a  "cuckold's  horn."  Being  only  an  Ameri- 
can and  half  educated  and  standing  in  dread  of 
being  classed  with  "  a  certain  wretched  group  of 
dilettanti  who  swarm  over  Europe  and  America  " 
( with  compliments  to  Mr.  Sidney  Lee,  Dr.  Brandes 
and  other  recent  critics)  I  refrain  from  making  any 
answer,  though  the  greatest  fool — even  an  Ameri- 
can fool — can  ask  questions  that  sometimes  puzzle 
the  wisest  scholars  to  answer.  I  only  ask  the 
questions.  Will  the  wise  men  answer?  Unum 
cita!  Quis?  Quis? 

Since  the  publication  of  the  foregoing  paper  in 
The  Conservator  of  November  and  December, 
1904,  two  objections  have  been  suggested  to  the 
belief  that  these  cryptograms  in  Love's  Labour's 
Lost  are  not  the  result  of  accident.  The  first  ap- 
plies to  the  anagram  noticed  by  Father  Sutton  in 
"Borne  boon  for  boon  prescian"  and  is  to  the  effect 

35 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

that  the  usual  explanation  is  quite  sufficient: 
namely,  that  Prescian,  or  rather  Priscian,  being  the 
name  of  a  Roman  grammarian,  "Prescian  a  little 
scratched  "  would  mean  that  there  was  an  error  in 
grammar.  But  this  view  is  hardly  borne  out  by 
the  text  of  either  the  Quarto  or  Folio,  which, 
except  for  corrections  in  spelling,  is  the  same. 
"Borne  boon  for  boon  prescian,  a  little  scratcht,  twil 
serve."  Both  the  italics  and  the  comma  make  the 
word  "prescian"  part  of  the  supposed  Latin 
phrase  ;  moreover,  it  is  not  printed  with  a  capital 
as  it  should  be  if  the  proper  name  were  intended. 
The  other  objection  applies  to  the  whole  sub- 
ject, and  is  that  the  play  is  one  of  the  earliest,  per- 
haps the  very  earliest,  of  the  Shakespearean  col- 
lection, and  at  that  early  date  Bacon,  supposing 
that  he  had  anything  to  do  with  it,  could  scarcely 
have  anticipated  the  celebrity  and  permanence  that 
would  attach  to  the  dramas.  Therefore,  he  would 
have  had  no  reason  for  this  cryptic  self-assertion, 
36 


IN  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST 

.nor  would  he  anticipate  any  curiosity  that  might 
arise  as  to  its  interpretation.  In  answer  to  this  I 
would  say  that  while  this  play  is  undoubtedly  one 
of  the  earliest  of  those  known  as  Shake-speare's,  it 
was  not  published  till  1598,  and  then  is  described 
as  being  "  newly  corrected  and  augmented."  The 
first  part  of  this  scene,  in  which  these  curiosities 
occur,  is  probably  one  of  the  augmentations,  as  it 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  plot  of  the  play.  In 
the  same  year,  1598,  there  appeared  Francis  Meres' 
Palladis  Tamia,  Wit's  Treasury,  in  which  he  says : 

As  Plautus  and  Seneca  are  accounted  the  best 
for  comedy  and  tragedy  among  the  Latines,  so 
Shakespeare,  among  the  English,  is  the  most  ex- 
cellent in  both  kinds  for  the  stage  ;  witness  his 
Gentlemen  of  Verona,  his  Errors,  his  Love 
Labour's  lost,  his  Love  Labour's  Wonne,  his 
Midsummer's  Night  Dreame,  and  his  Merchant 
of  Venice :  for  tragedy,  his  Richard  the  2,  Rich- 
ard the  3,  Henry  the  4,  King  John,  Titus  An- 
dronicus,  and  his  Romeo  and  Juliet. 
37 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

Meres'  book,  Palladis  Tamia,  bears  the  imprint, 
"At  London.  Printed  by  P.  Short  for  Cuthbert 
Burbie,  1598."  Love's  Labour's  Lost,  "At  Lon- 
don by  W.  W.  for  Cuthbert  Burby,  1598."  Here, 
then,  are  two  books,  issued  in  the  same  year  by 
the  same  publisher,  one  making  for  the  first  time 
the  claim  that  the  twelve  dramas  mentioned  in  the 
above  list  are  Shake-speare's,  the  other  being  the 
first  play  ever  printed,  so  far  as  we  know,  bearing 
Shake-speare's  name  upon  the  title-page.  The  two 
are  the  first  public  announcements  of  Shake-speare 
as  a  playwright.  For  the  four  years  previous  that 
name  had  been  well  known  as  that  of  the  author  of 
Venus  and  Adonis  and  The  Rape  of  Lucrece, 
poems  which  had  been  received  with  applause  by 
literary  men  and  the  public  alike.  During  these 
four  years,  and  probably  even  before,  plays  now 
known  as  Shake-speare's  had  appeared  and  be- 
come familiar  to  the  play-going  public  but  they 
had  all  appeared  anonymously.  Not  until  this 
38 


IN  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST 

year,  1598,  had  a  distinct  claim  been  made  that 
their  author  was  the  well  known  poet,  and  then  it 
was  made  almost  simultaneously  by  the  publica- 
tion of  Meres'  list  and  by  the  appearance  of  the 
name  "  William  Shakespeare  "  for  the  first  time 
on  the  title-page  of  any  play,  and  that  one  of  those 
mentioned  by  Meres. 

Meres'  list,  then,  having  identified  the  author  of 
Venus  and  Adonis  and  The  Rape  of  Lucrece  with 
the  author  of  the  twelve  plays  mentioned  by  him, 
all  of  which  by  this  time  had  become  popular,  this 
would  appear  to  be  the  very  time  and  place  of  all 
for  the  true  author  to  make  his  claim,  if  such  claim 
was  ever  to  be  made,  and  would  seem  to  make  it 
quite  clear  what  plays  were  designated  by  "hi 
ludi." 


39 


DESIGN   ONE 


DESIGN  TWO 


DESIGN  THREE 


40 


THE   BACON   CRYPTOGRAM    IN  THE 
SHAKE-SPEARE  QUARTOS 

The  three  figures  on  the  opposite  page  are  re- 
productions of  the  headpieces  of  the  Quartos  of : 
I.  A   Pleasaunt  Conceited  History,  called  The 
Taming  of  a  Shrew.     Printed  at  London  by 
Peter  Short,  1594. 

II.  The  First  Part  of  the  Contention  betwixt  the 
two  famous  Houses  of  Yorke  and  Lancaster, 
&c.  London.  Printed  by  Thomas  Creed 
for  Thomas  Millington,  1594. 
III.  The  Tragedy  of  King  Richard  the  second. 
London.  Printed  by  Valentine  Simmes  for 
Andrew  Wise,  1597. 

I  fail  to  find  the  first  form  of  headpiece  in  any 
of  the  Quartos  other  than  The  Taming  of  a  Shrew. 
The  second  appears  in  The  First  Part  of  the  Con- 
tention, as  mentioned  above,  and  in  the  following : 
The  Famous  Victories  of  Henry  the  fifth,  Lon- 
41 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

don,  Printed  by  Thomas  Creede,  1598  ;  The  Most 
Excellent  and  Lamentable  Tragedy  of  Romeo  and 
luliet,  London,  Printed  by  Thomas  Creed  for 
Cuthbert  Burby,  1599;  The  Chronicle  History 
of  Henry  the  fift,  London,  Printed  by  Thomas 
Creed,  1600 ;  The  Tragedy  of  King  Richard  the 
third,  Newly  augmented  by  William  Shakespeare, 
London,  Printed  by  Thomas  Creede,  1602 ;  A 
Most  pleasaunt  and  excellent  conceited  Comedy 
of  Syr  John  Falstaffe  and  the  merrie  Wives  of 
Windsor  &c.,  By  William  Shakespeare,  London, 
Printed  by  T.  C.  for  Arthur  Johnson,  1602.  The 
third  appears  not  only  in  Richard  II.,  but  also  in 
The  Tragedy  of  King  Richard  the  third,  London, 
Printed  by  Valentine  Sims,  for  Andrew  Wise, 
1597;  The  second  part  of  Henry  the  fourth, 
Written  by  William  Shakespeare,  London,  Printed 
by  V.  S.  for  Andrew  Wise  and  William  Aspley, 
1600  ;  The  Tragicall  History  of  Hamlet  Prince  of 
Denmarke  by  William  Shake-speare,  At  London 
42 


IN  THE  SHAKE-SPEARE  QUARTOS 

printed  for  N.  L.  and  lohn  Trundell  1603;  and 
Shake-speare's  Sonnets,  Never  before  Imprinted, 
At  London  By  G.  Eld  for  T.  T. 

Upon  comparing  the  three  devices  it  will  be 
seen  that  they  are  essentially  alike,  differing  only 
in  their  outward  flourishes. 


DESIGN    FOUR 

Each  is  distinctly  a  cryptogram  or  monogram 
of  the  letters  B-A-C-O-N.  By  turning  the  figures 
so  that  the  left  hand  end  is  down  the  B  is  suffi- 
ciently apparent,  occupying  the  middle  of  the 
space.  The  upright  is  formed  by  the  top  of  the 
vase  and  the  branches  growing  from  it.  While  the 
loops  of  the  B  do  not  come  quite  together  and  the 
character  is  not  as  distinctly  formed  as  the  other 
43 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

four  it  clearly  represents  a  B.  The  AC  on  the 
left  hardly  needs  pointing  out.  The  O  and  N  are 
on  the  right,  the  O  formed  by  the  reversed  C,  the 
ends  of  the  loop  of  which  are  united  by  a  twig  and 
leaf.  It  may  be  objected  that  a 
similar  arrangement  of  twig  and  leaf 
obtains  in  the  C  on  the  left,  which 
is  true,  and  it  seems  to  be  so  de- 
signed that  it  may  be  read  as  either 
C  or  O.  But  it  is  hardly  to  be 
supposed  that  if  a  cryptogram  were 
intended  the  readingwould  be  made 
DESIGN  FIVE  perfectly  obvious.  Symmetry  had 
to  be  preserved  or  the  secret  would  have  been  ex- 
posed at  once.  The  character  on  the  right  is 
clearly  an  O,  or  if  it  is  insisted  that  we  disregard 
the  connecting  twig  and  leaf  because  we  have  done 
so  on  the  left,  then  the  symbol  represents  the  C 
reverse,  which  as  has  been  shown  stands  for  con, 
and  we  have  B-A-C-O-N,  anyhow,  or  at  least 
44 


IN  THE  SHAKE-SPEARE  QUARTOS 

B-A-C-C-O-N,  as  the  name  was  sometimes  spelled. 
The  N  is  formed  by  the  same  loop,  the  long  curved 
arm  reaching  out  to  the  right  and  the  twig  and 
flower  on  top.  There  are  the  letters  B-A-C-O-N 
in  direct  order  and  with  no  more  confusion  or  ob- 
scurity than  usually  appears  in  monograms  printed 
by  stationers  on  letter  paper. 

But  this  is  not  all.  If  the  figures  are  held  with 
the  right  hand  end  downward  at  the  beginning 
or  what  will  then  be  the  top  in  each  emerges  the 
letter  F,  and  if  they  are  reversed,  then  in  what 
in  that  position  be- 
comes the  top,  ap- 
pears the  letter  R. 
Now  strip  them  of 
their  appendages  and 
they  appear  thus : 
FR.  BACON.  I 
confess  I  am  not 
any  too  certain  about 

45 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

the  R  ;  it  seems  a  little  weak  in  the  back.  Perhaps 
for  that  I  may  have  drawn  slightly  upon  my  imagi- 
nation, so  I  shall  not  insist  upon  it ;  but  to  make 
six  letters  fall  together  so  as  to  spell  F.  Bacon  is 
surely  enough  to  ask  of  any  "  mere  coincidence." 
So  far  my  investigations  have  been  confined  to 
such  of  the  Shake-speare  Quartos  as  appear  in  the 
Griggs-Praetorius  photo-lithographic  reproduc- 
tions. In  what  other  books  of  the  period  this 
monogram  may  be  found  I  cannot  say.  I  am  told 
that  somewhat  similar  designs  appeared  in  books 
of  a  later  date — after  Bacon's  death — but  I  have 
seen  none  in  which  I  could  find  all  the  letters 
of  "  Bacon."  At  that  late  period  they  would 
have  little  if  any  significance  anyhow,  and  as 
the  matter  stands  it  is  sufficiently  curious  that 
in  twelve  of  the  forty-three  Shake-speare  Quartos 
reproduced  by  Messrs.  Griggs  and  Praetorius 
Bacon's  name  should  appear  distinctly  at  the 
top  of  the  first  page.  I  am  quite  well  aware 

46 


IN  THE  SHAKE-SPEARE  QUARTOS 

that  of  several  of  the  plays  mentioned,  the  author- 
ship is  not  usually  attributed  to  Shake-speare,  but 
this  does  not  remove  or  lessen  the  mystery,  and 
they  are  all  in  one  way  or  another  connected  with 
his  work.  How  did  the  name  Fr.  Bacon  get  there 
and  what  does  it  signify  ?  It  did  not  happen  by 
accident.  Simply  a  printer's  device,  someone  will 
say.  But  here  are  five  different  printers  and  at 
least  three  different  blocks.  But  if  it  is  a  printer's 
device,  why  should  it  spell  Fr.  Bacon  ?  Why 
should  five  different  printers  each  put  his  name  at 
the  beginning  of  his  books  unless  Bacon  had  some- 
thing to  do  with  them  ?  Is  it  possible  that  he  was 
a  special  partner  in  five  different  printing  houses  ? 
It  does  not  seem  likely  but  perhaps  it  is  worth  in- 
vestigating. Anyhow  the  fact  remains  that  here  is 
the  name  Fr.  Bacon  staring  us  in  the  face  from 
the  top  of  the  first  page  of  twelve  of  the  Shake- 
speare Quartos. 

To  recapitulate  and  classify  ;  the  Roman  num- 
47 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

erals  in  the  last  column  indicating  the  design  ac- 
cording to  the  arrangement  above  : 

Play                   Printer  Date  Design 

1  Shrew.                      Short  1594  I 

2  Contention.             Creed  1594  II 

3  Rich.  II.                Sims  1597  III 

4  Rich.  III.               Sims  1597  III 

5  Fam.  Vic.               Creed  1598  II 

6  R.  &  J.                   Creed  1599  II 

7  II.  Hy.  IV.            Sims  1600  III 

8  Henry  V.                Creed  1600  II 

9  Rich.  III.               Creed  1602  II 

10  Mer.  W.  Creed  1602         II 

11  Hamlet.          for  N.  L.  &  I.  T.  1603        III 

12  Sonnets.  Eld  1609        III 
Design  One  then  appears  only  once  and  that  in 

one  of  the  two  earliest  of  the  series  and  was  used 
by  Short  in  1594. 

Design  Two  appears  to  have  been  used  only  by 


IN  THE  SHAKE-SPEARE  QUARTOS 

Creed  and  was  used  by  him  in  six  books  of  dates, 
from  1594  to  1602. 

Design  Three  seems  to  have  been  used  by  three 
printers — by  Sims  three  times  and  by  the  printer 
of  the  1603  Hamlet  and  Eld  each  once.  For  any 
thing  that  1  can  see  these  five  prints  may  all  be 
from  the  same  block. 

Now,  how  is  all  this  to  be  accounted  for?  Did 
Creed  copy  Short's  design  or  Short  Creed's  ?  and 
then  did  Sims  copy  from  both  and  pass  his  block 
on  to  the  nameless  printer  of  Hamlet  and  he  to 
Eld  ?  And  if  so  why,  unless  it  had  some  cryptic 
meaning  which  was  sought  to  be  perpetuated  ?  It 
would  appear  to  be  a  very  interesting  problem  to 
students  of  early  printing.  I  am  not  one,  and  I 
pass  the  question  on  to  them. 

I  am  perfectly  aware  of  an  objection  that  will  be 
made  to  what  I  have  pointed  out :  that  it  is  possi- 
ble to  form  any  letter  or  combinations  of  letters  out 
of  any  design  by  removing  what  one  pleases.  My 

49 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

answer  is,  let  the  objector  try  to  form  the  letters  of 
any  other  name  from  these  designs  without  impair- 
ing their  structural  anatomy.  One  might  say  that 
we  have  no  proof  that  there  are  arteries  in  the  hu- 
man body  because  a  skilful  dissector  might  carve 
their  semblance  out  of  an  amorphous  mass  with  his 
dissecting  knife.  When  fossil  remains  were  first 
discovered — throwing  a  doubt  on  the  orthodox 
opinions  about  the  creation  of  the  world — the  na- 
tural inference  drawn  by  men  of  a  scientific  and  ra- 
tional habit  of  mind  was  met  in  two  different  ways 
in  two  different  quarters.  Voltaire  said  they  were 
shells  dropped  from  pilgrims'  hats.  Holy  monks 
said  they  were  put  there  by  God  to  test  men's 
faith.  Perhaps  one  of  the  explanations  will  apply 
to  these  fossils. 

The  question  whether  the  significance  of  this 
monogram  was  known  to  any  contemporary  of 
Shake-speare  will  be  considered  in  the  final  chap- 
ter. 

50 


A  SUGGESTION  AS  TO  THE  PROBABLE 

RELATION  OF  WILLIAM  SHAKSPER 

TO  THE  SHAKE-SPEARE  PLAYS 

As  long  ago  as  1880,  Appleton  Morgan,  in  his 
masterly  work,  The  Shakespearean  Myth,  which 
with  all  his  pains  he  has  never  since  been  able  to 
refute,  advanced  the  theory  that  the  Shake-speare 
plays  as  they  come  to  us  today,  through  the  First 
Folio,  are  the  joint  product  of  at  least  two  men,  one 
the  anonymous  master  poet  and  dramatist  whom 
we  know  as  Shake-speare,  the  other  some  business 
man  connected  with  a  playhouse,  probably  Will- 
iam Shaksper,  the  play  broker,  actor  and  manager. 

In  the  book  already  referred  to,  Is  it  Shake- 
speare ?  by  A  Cambridge  Graduate,  the  proposi- 
tion is  somewhat  elaborated.  This  author  says 
that  there  seems  to  be  a  strong  evidence  that  the 
shrewd  actor-manager  was  always  ready  to  use,  for 
his  stage  purposes,  any  suitable  plays,  new  or  old, 
51 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

that  came  into  his  hands — that  he  would  change 
them  by  the  addition  of  gags  and  the  omission  of 
what  he  deemed  unsuitable  for  his  purpose  as  he 
saw  fit ;  which  in  fact  is  about  what  any  theatrical 
manager  does  today. 

If  this  should  prove  to  be  the  case  it  would  ac- 
count for  most  of  those  discrepancies  of  style  and 
manner  which  have  given  the  commentators  so 
much  trouble  and  led  to  the  invention  by  them  of 
all  those  whimsical  "tests"  to  determine  which 
particular  lines  were  written  by  Shake-speare  and 
which  by  Johannes  Factotum. 

That  plays  were  mutilated  in  this  fashion  in  those 
days  is  clear  from  the  testimony  of  Ben  Jonson. 
In  his  address  To  the  Readers,  prefixed  to  Sejanus, 
he  says  with  his  own  delightful  sarcasm  :  "  Lastly, 
I  would  inform  you  this  book,  in  all  numbers,  is 
not  the  same  with  that  which  was  acted  on  the  pub- 
lic stage ;  wherein  a  second  pen  had  good  share ; 
in  place  of  which,  I  have  rather  chosen  to  put 
52 


A  SUGGESTION 

weaker  and  no  doubt  less  pleasing  of  my  own  than 
to  defraud  so  happy  a  genius  of  his  right  by  my 
loathed  usurpation." 

The  instances  of  internal  evidence  pointing  to 
William  Shaksper,  or  any  Stratford-on-Avon  man, 
as  the  author,  seem  to  be  only  two — that  in  the 
Induction  to  the  Taming  of  the  Shrew  and  that 
in  the  first  scene  of  the  first  act  of  the  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor.  I  shall  attempt  to  show  in 
both  cases  that  the  condition  and  history  of  the 
text  is  more  in  accord  with  the  theory  of  Dr. 
Morgan  and  the  Cambridge  Graduate  than  with 
that  of  a  Stratford-on-Avon  authorship. 

In  the  Induction  to  the  Taming  of  the  Shrew 
the  drunken  tinker  is  named  Christopher  Sly  ;  he 
is  "old  Sly's  son  of  Burton-Heath";  he  refers  for 
identification  to  "  Marian  Racket,  the  fat  ale-wife 
of  Wincot";  he  speaks  of  "Cicely  Hacket," 
"Stephen  Sly,"  "John  Naps  of  Greece,"  "Peter 
Turph"  and  "  Henry  Pimpernell ";  all  these  names 
53 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

of  people  and  places  being,  as  is  well  known, 
associated  with  the  neighborhood  of  Stratford-on- 
Avon. 

Now,  as  early  as  1594,  there  was  "  Printed  at 
London  by  Peter  Short "  The  Taming  of  a  Shrew. 
It  is  an  amplification  of  this  that  appears  in  the 
First  Folio  as  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew.  The 
former  is  believed  by  no  one  to  be  the  work  of 
Shake-speare ;  it  is  wholly  un-Shakespearean  ;  and 
yet  furnishes  the  outline  of  the  story  and  con- 
tains a  sketch  of  the  Induction  with  the  character 
of  Sly.  This,  in  the  Folio  play,  is  developed  and 
expanded  in  a  truly  Shakespearean  manner.  Per- 
haps there  is  nothing  in  all  Shake-speare  that  shows 
more  conclusively  the  work  of  two  different  writers 
than  this  very  Induction,  and  the  local  allusions 
are  clearly  traced  to  some  other  hand  than  that  of 
the  great  dramatist.  There  is  nothing  in  the  ear- 
lier form  of  the  play  that  might  not  easily  be  the 
work  of  any  fairly  clever  hack  writer  of  plays,  and 
54 


A  SUGGESTION 

yet  Sly,  who  carries  us  to  Warwickshire  and 
Gloucestershire,  is  his  creation.  It  may  easily  be 
that  here  is  where  Mr.  Manager  Shaksper  shows 
his  hand.  To  be  sure  the  local  names,  other  than 
that  of  Sly,  do  not  appear  in  the  Quarto  but  only 
in  the  Folio  version,  but  this  does  not  affect  the  ar- 
gument as  mere  names  of  course  could  have  been 
readily  supplied  by  the  actor-manager  with  the  in- 
tent of  carrying  out  the  local  coloring  first  sug- 
gested by  the  name  Christopher  Sly. 

It  is  generally  conceded  that  the  first  scene  of 
The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  refers  to  Shaksper's 
deer  stealing  adventure  and  that  Justice  Shallow 
stands  for  Sir  Thomas  Lucy.  This  scarcely  ad- 
mits of  a  doubt.  The  discussion  about  the  "dozen 
white  luces  "  in  the  coat  of  a  Gloucestershire  jus- 
tice leaves  little  to  the  imagination  on  this  score, 
and  thus  we  find,  for  the  second  and  last  time,  the 
Plays  in  touch  with  the  man  Shaksper.  How- 
ever it  may  be,  this  story  seems  as  if  it  may 

55 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

have  some  connection  with  one   in  Holinshed's 
Chronicles : 

Sir  William  Wise  having  lent  to  the  king,  Henry 
VIII,  his  signet  to  seal  a  letter,  who  having  pow- 
dered eremies  engray'd  in  the  scale,  the  king 
paused  and  lookit  thereat,  considering.  "  Why, 
how  now,  Wise?"  quoth  the  king.  "What! — 
hast  thou  lice  here?  "  "An,  if  it  like  your  majes- 
tic," quoth  Sir  William,  "  a  louse  is  a  rich  coat ; 
for  by  giving  the  louse  I  part  arms  with  the  French 
king,  in  that  he  giveth  the  flour-de-lice '."  Whereat 
the  king  heartily  laugh'd,  to  hear  how  prettily  so 
byting  a  taunt  was  so  suddenly  turned  to  so  pleas- 
aunte  a  conceite.* 

The  Quarto  of  The  Merry  Wives,  1602,  the 
only  Quarto  worth  noticing,  for  that  of  1619  was 
merely  a  reprint  of  it,  is  a  poor  abortive  thing, 
containing  less  than  two-thirds  in  mass  and  less 
than  a  tenth  in  matter  of  the  finished  play  as  we  find 
it  in  the  Folio.  The  commentators  have  always 

•  The  Rosicracisuis,  by  Hvcrave  Jennings,  page  50. 

56 


A  SUGGESTION 

been  at  war  as  to  whether  it  was  an  early  sketch  or  a 
mangled  version — a  needless  war,  for  it  is  plainly 
both — a  mangled  version  of  a  first  sketch,  as  the 
very  first  page  shows.  Shallow  says :  "  Never 
talke  to  me.  He  make  a  star-chamber  matter  of  it. 
The  councell  shall  know  it."  Know  what  ?  With- 
out another  word  on  the  subject,  the  discussion  of 
Mr.  Slender's  pretensions  to  the  hand  of  Miss 
Page  is  opened.  This  surely  was  not  to  be  made 
a  star-chamber  matter.  The  Folio  makes  it  clear 
that  it  is  Falstaff's  deer  stealing  that  provokes  Shal- 
low's threat.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  story 
of  the  poaching  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Quarto. 
It  is,  but  the  reference  to  it,  explaining  the  initial 
speech  of  Justice  Shallow  and  which  contained  the 
supposed  allusion  to  Lucy,  is  omitted. 

Conceding,  then,  that  the  incident  of  Shaksper's 
deer  stealing  exploit  forms  the  thesis  of  this  pas- 
sage of  the  play,  the  question  of  how  it  came  there 
still  remains  open.  It  by  no  means  follows  that 

57 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

the  poacher  was  the  author.  Grant  White  says : 
"  The  text  of  that  edition  ( 1602)  contains  evidence 
that  it  was  written  after  the  production  of  Henry 
IV,  and  it  probably  represents  a  play  written  has- 
tily (in  a  fortnight  to  please  the  queen,  tradition 
says)  by  Shake-speare,  with  the  help  of  some  other 
playwright,  whose  work  was  rejected  on  a  revision 
of  the  comedy,  to  which  we  owe  the  version 
printed  in  the  Folio  of  1623."  *  The  Quarto  shows 
plainly  the  evidence  of  a  hurried,  bungled  com- 
position, and  it  tends  to  confirm  the  tradition  that 
it  was  hastily  produced  for  the  stage,  and  it  must 
have  been  mangled  somewhere  between  the  au- 
thor's hands  and  those  of  the  printer.  Not  only 
are  there  omissions  that  leave  the  fragmentary  pas- 
sages meaningless  but  there  are  passages  as  hope- 
lessly un-Shakespearean  as  anything  in  The  Tam- 
ing of  a  Shrew  ;  witness  the  dialogue  between  Fen- 
ton  and  Anne  Page  in  Act  III,  scene  4.  Hence, 

*  Introduction  to  The  Merry  Wives,  second  edition. 
58 


A  SUGGESTION 

taking  all  things  into  consideration,  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  say  in  all  cases  exactly  what  Shake-speare 
wrote.  It  might  not  be  unreasonable  to  claim  that 
this  caricature  of  Sir  Thomas  is  a  gag,  especially 
as  it  does  not  appear  in  the  Quarto.  However,  I 
do  not  accept  that  explanation,  but  believe  it  to 
have  been  written  by  Shake-speare  himself,  and 
this  for  three  reasons  :  first,  because,  while  it  does 
not  appear  in  the  Quarto,  the  sentence  introducing 
it  does,  showing  that  something  has  been  omitted, 
presumably  that  which  appears  in  the  correspond- 
ing place  in  the  Folio ;  second,  because  it  is  a  typical 
example  of  Shakespearean  wit,  and  third,  because  I 
do  not  believe  that  Shake-speare  was  Shaksper. 

Nearly  all  the  commentators  accept  the  tradi- 
tion that  the  play  was  produced  very  hastily  in  re- 
sponse to  some  kind  of  order  from  court — in 
fourteen  days  it  is  said  ;  be  that  as  it  may,  it  shows 
signs  of  haste.  Now,  if  a  play  broker  needing,  in 
a  hurry,  a  play  with  Falstaff  as  the  principal  char- 
59 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

acter,  had  gone  to  his  favorite  playwright  with  his 
commission,  what  is  more  likely  than  that  he 
should  have  suggested  what  appeared  to  be  an 
amusing  incident  in  his  own  career  as  good  ma- 
terial to  work  up — what  is  more  likely  than  that 
the  playwright  should  have  said :  "  Very  good, 
indeed,  but  the  joke  will  be  on  you,  for  you  must 
be  Falstaff "  ?  What  is  more  unlikely  than  that 
the  dramatist  should  have  burlesqued  himself  as 
Falstaff  ?  But  if  there  is  anything  at  all  in  the 
story  Falstaff  is  as  surely  Shaksper  as  Shallow  is 
Lucy.  However  this  may  be,  that  there  is  one 
caricature  in  the  play  under  consideration  it  seems 
impossible  to  doubt.  The  author  has  not  even 
taken  the  trouble  to  disguise  the  name  of  his  vic- 
tim. Dr.  John  Caius  was  a  professor  at  Cambridge 
until  1573  when  he  died.  He  was  of  a  very  iras- 
cible and  quarrelsome  temper,  continually  in 
broils  with  the  students  who  hated  and  ridiculed 
him.  He  had  some  of  them  whipped  and  put 

60 


A  SUGGESTION 

into  the  stocks.  He  continually  engaged  in  per- 
sonal altercation  with  them.  He  had  an  especial 
antipathy  to  Welshmen.  All  of  which  character- 
istics go  to  identify  him  with  his  namesake  of  the 
play.  The  students  finally  appealed  to  Lord 
Treasurer  Burleigh,  whose  nephew,  Francis  Bacon, 
was  then  a  student  at  Cambridge.*  This  does  not 
seem  to  be  a  reminiscence  that  Mr.  Manager 
Shaksper  would  have  been  likely  to  suggest. 

Ford  and  Page  are,  1  believe,  Stratford,  or  at 
least  Warwickshire,  names,  but  they  may  very  eas- 
ily have  been  supplied  by  the  manager,  and  tak- 
ing all  these  things  into  consideration  they  would 
seem  to  indicate  that  William  Shaksper's  connec- 
tion with  the  Plays  was  managerial  rather  than  au- 
thorial. 


'  See    Francis   Bacon   OUT  Shakespeare,  br  Edwin  Reed.     Also  Dictionary  of  National 
Biography. 


61 


TESTIMONY  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO 

In  his  recent  interesting  but  somewhat  conjec- 
tural Life  of  Shakespeare,  Dr.  Rolfe  argues  that 
it  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  Bacon  had  anything 
to  do  with  the  editing  of  the  Shake-speare  Folio 
of  1623  on  the  ground  that  the  many  typographical 
errors  in  that  volume  show  "beyond  the  possibil- 
ity of  a  doubt,  that  the  plays  in  the  Folio  could 
not  have  been  carefully  revised  or  seen  through 
the  press  by  any  person  who  had  had  experience 
in  editing,  printing  or  publishing."  He  adds : 
"  That  Francis  Bacon  could  have  edited  them  or 
supervised  their  publication  is  inconceivable — ex- 
cept to  a  fool  or  a  Baconian."  It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  the  Baconians  are  duly  appreciative  of  this 
differentiation — it  is  a  very  unusual  courtesy. 

In  reply  to  this  a  believer  in  the  Baconian  editor- 
ship of  the  First  Folio  might  in  the  first  place  quote 
Spedding  to  the  effect  that  many  of  Bacon's  early 

62 


TESTIMONY  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO 

works,  published  during  his  lifetime  and  presum- 
ably under  his  supervision,  are  quite  as  badly 
printed  as  is  the  Shake-speare  First  Folio.  Next, 
he  might  show  that,  at  the  time  of  the  appearance 
of  the  Folio,  Bacon  was  suffering  from  the  mental 
distress  following  what  is  known  as  his  "fall",  and 
that  he  was  very  deeply  occupied  in  matters  which 
probably  to  him,  at  that  period  of  his  life,  ap- 
peared of  much  greater  consequence,  and  that 
whatever  share  he  might  have  had  in  the  matter 
was  undoubtedly  delegated  to  secretaries.  He 
might  also  suggest  that  if  Bacon  wished  to  remain 
unknown  in  the  matter  he  would  have  been  care- 
ful not  to  have  allowed  his  hand  to  appear  in  it, 
thereby  providing  Dr.  Rolfe  with  his  argument. 
He  might  also  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  the 
only  literary  man  who  is  known  to  have  had  any 
connection  with  the  publication  of  the  Folio  was 
Ben  Jonson,  and  he  could  show  on  the  authority 
of  William  Drummond  and  Archbishop  Tenison 

63 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

that  Jonson  was  at  or  about  this  time  one  of 
Bacon's  secretaries,  which  would  seem  to  be  bring- 
ing the  matter  pretty  closely  home  to  Bacon's 
door.  He  might  also  ask  Dr.  Rolfe  to  join  him 
in  a  guessing  match  as  to  who  wrote  the  very  re- 
markable Dedication  of  the  Folio  and  the  Ad- 
dress to  the  Great  Variety  of  Readers.  Surely 
not  Heminge  and  Condell ! 

It  may  be  fairly  said  that  the  only  evidence 
connecting  the  Shake-speare  plays  with  William 
Shaksper  as  their  author  is  the  first  collected  edi- 
tion, published  in  1623,  seven  years  after  Shaks- 
per's  death,  and  known  as  the  "  First  Folio." 

The  spelling  Shaksper  is  used  to  designate  the 
player.  That  appears  to  be  his  own  spelling — as 
far  as  his  autographs  are  legible — and  it  was  the 
most  common  spelling  of  the  name  of  the  Strat- 
ford family.  The  name  Shakespeare  makes  its 
first  appearance  in  English  annals  appended  to  the 
dedication  of  Venus  and  Adonis  in  1593  ;  with  all 
64 


TESTIMONY  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO 

the  sixty-seven,  more  or  less,  ways  in  which  the 
name  of  the  Stratford  family  was  spelled,  that 
never  occurs.  The  first  syllable  was  always  short 
and  the  pronunciation  appears  to  have  been  Shax- 
pur,  probably  a  corruption  of  Jacques  Pierre,  al- 
though Dr.  Rolfe  says  this  derivation  is  absurd. 

It  is  true  that  between  1597  and  1611  forty-two 
plays  were  published  as  having  been  written  by 
William  Shakespeare  orShake-speare.  Langbaine, 
in  his  English  Dramatic  Poets  (1691),  enumerates 
forty-six  plays.  This  list  of  forty-two  contains 
such  plays  as  The  Merry  Devil  of  Edmonton  and 
The  Puritan  or  the  Widow  of  Watling  Street, 
plays  which  no  one  ever  has,  since  the  beginning 
of  Shakespearean  criticism,  supposed  for  an  in- 
stant came  from  the  master's  hand.  This  list  of 
forty-two  comprises  only  the  plays  published  as 
Shake-speare's,  though  many  others  were  attributed 
to  him.  Shaksper  was  a  popular  theatrical  man- 
ager, and  it  is  very  likely  that  plays  produced 
65 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

on  the  stage  by  him  were  spoken  of  as  his  or 
as  Shake-speare's  without  a  very  distinct  idea 
as  to  authorship.  Hence  if  the  testimony  ended 
here  the  natural  and  only  supposition  would  be 
that  during  those  years  "  William  Shake-speare  " 
was  a  popular  pseudonym  used  by  anyone  who 
chose  to  append  it  to  any  anonymous  play,  and 
that  there  must  have  been  two,  if  not  more,  authors 
who  thus  used  it  or  the  publishers  of  the  plays 
used  it  for  them.  In  1616  William  Shaksper  died 
at  Stratford  on  Avon,  leaving  a  most  circumstan- 
tial will,  which  enumerated  his  possessions  down 
to  his  "  silver  gilt  bowl  "  and  his  famous  "second 
best  bed,"  but  which  contained  no  mention  of  any 
books,  manuscripts  or  any  interest  in  any  literary 
property  whatever.  Nor  has  any  evidence  been 
produced  dating  from  his  lifetime  that  he  at  any 
time  had  any  such  interest.  So  the  matter  rested 
till  1623,  so  it  probably  would  have  rested  till  this 
day,  and  the  author  of  the  wonderful  dramas 

66 


TESTIMONY  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO 

would  be  still  regarded  as  the  great  unknown  if  it 
had  not  been  for  the  publication  of  the  Folio. 
This  purported  to  be,  as  its  title  page  declares, 
"  Mr.  William  Shakespeare's  Comedies,  Histories 
and  Tragedies,  published  according  to  the  True 
Originall  Copies,  London,  printed  by  Isaac  lag- 
gard and  Ed.  Blount,  1623." 

This  volume  contains  thirty-six  plays,  which 
may  be  classified  in  three  groups :  First,  eighteen 
selected  from  the  forty-two  already  mentioned  as 
having  been  published  during  Shaksper's  lifetime 
as  by  William  Shakespeare  or  Shake-speare  ;  sec- 
ond, one,  Othello,  which  had  been  published  in  like 
manner  in  1622,  six  years  after  Shaksper's  death ; 
third,  seventeen,  which  had  not  been  previously 
published,  six  of  which,  according  to  Dr.  Halli- 
well-Phillips,  we  now  hear  of  indisputably  for  the 
first  time.  These  thirty-six  plays,  with  Pericles, 
which  later  editors  have  added,  constitute  the 
canon  as  we  have  it  to-day. 

67 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

Several  of  the  Plays  as  they  appear  in  the  Folio 
are  revised  versions  of  the  texts  of  the  Quartos. 
This  is  especially  noticeable  in  the  case  of  Othello, 
the  first  edition  of  which  appeared  in  1622 — six 
years  after  the  actor's  death — and  yet  it  underwent 
a  thorough  revision  with  additions,  thoroughly 
characteristic  of  Shake-speare,  before  its  appear- 
ance in  the  Folio  the  next  year.  Richard  III 
likewise  was  revised  and  augmented  between  1621 
and  1623. 

Three  names  besides  those  of  the  printers  are 
prominently  connected  with  this  publication,  those 
of  John  Heminge,  Henry  Condell  and  Ben  Jon- 
son.  Heminge  and  Condell  were  fellow  actors 
with  Shaksper  and  they  sign  the  dedication,  which 
is  to  the  Earls  of  Pembroke  and  Montgomerie, 
and  the  address  "to  the  Great  Variety  of  Readers." 
These  are  very  curious  documents.  While  un- 
doubtedly designed  to  convey  the  idea  that  the 
Plays  are  the  work  of  the  Stratford  player,  they 
68 


TESTIMONY  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO 

avoid  an  explicit  statement  to  that  effect.  More- 
over, they  are  written  in  a  style  indicating  the 
hand  of  a  master  of  English.  They  suggest 
thorough  classical  scholarship  and  a  richness  of 
metaphor  and  skill  in  its  use,  and  withal  a  grace 
of  diction  not  to  be  expected,  and,  in  fact,  incon- 
ceivable in  such  unlearned  men  as  Heminge  and 
Condell  are  known  to  have  been.  Moreover, 
they  are  very  much  in  the  style  of  many  of  the 
prose  passages  of  the  Plays  themselves.  Part  of 
the  dedication  is  almost  a  translation  of  the  dedica- 
tion of  one  of  Pliny's  works  to  the  Emperor 
Titus.  Here  is  an  example  of  the  diction: 
"  Country  hands  reach  forth  milk,  cream,  fruits 
or  what  they  have,  and  many  nations,  we  have 
heard,  that  had  not  gums  and  incense,  obtained 
their  requests  with  a  leavened  cake.  It  was  no 
fault  to  approach  their  gods  by  what  means  they 
could,  and  the  most,  though  meanest  of  things,  are 
made  more  precious  when  dedicated  to  Temples." 

69 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

Now,  if  manner,  style,  diction  mean  anything, 
this  dedication  was  written  by  no  other  than  Fran- 
cis Bacon.  It  is,  of  course,  useless  to  argue  about 
style,  but  anyone  sufficiently  interested  can  com- 
pare the  dedication  as  a  whole  with  Bacon's  Essays. 
Two  other  points  should  be  noted  in  regard  to 
this  dedication.  One  is  that  it  adopts  an  air  of 
familiarity  which  it  would  have  been  impossible 
for  men  in  the  position  of  Heminge  and  Condell 
to  use  in  addressing  two  noble  lords  at  that  day, 
and  the  other  is  that  it  fairly  bristles  with  legal 
terms,  as  do  the  Plays.  "  To  procure  his  orphans, 
guardians,"  "  We  cannot  go  beyond  our  own 
powers  "  (the  legal  phrase  ultra  vires),  "  We  have 
deprived  ourselves  of  the  defense  of  our  dedica- 
tion," "  Prosecuted  their  author,"  "To  be  execu- 
tor of  his  own  writing."  It  has  been  suggested 
that  this  dedication  was  written  by  Jonson.  If  it 
was  written  by  him  he  wrote  it  in  a  very  different 
and  more  poetic  style  than  is  shown  in  any  of  his 
70 


TESTIMONY  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO 

acknowledged  prose  that  has  come  down  to  us. 

In  regard  to  the  "Address  to  the  Readers  "  the 
case  is  not  so  clear.  It  might  have  been  written 
by  Jonson  ;  its  badinage  somewhat  resembles  that 
of  some  of  his  introductions,  but  the  wit  is  more 
sprightly.  I  believe  this  also  to  be  by  Bacon  for 
one  reason,  that  it  also  is  top-heavy  with  legal 
phrases — not  a  peculiarity  of  Jonson's — "  Had 
their  trial  already  and  stood  out  all  appeals  "  and 
"Come  forth  acquitted  by  a  decree  of  Court"  are 
examples. 

We  now  turn  back  to  the  title  page  and  find  it 
disfigured  by  the  horrible  Droeshout  "portrait," 
"  a  hard,  wooden,  staring  thing,"  as  Grant  White 
calls  it,  that  bears  no  resemblance,  except  by  way 
of  caricature,  to  anything  human,  least  of  all  a 
poet.  This  is  confronted  by  Ben  Jonson's  enig- 
matical verse : 

This  Figure,  that  thou  here  seest  put, 
It  was  for  gentle  Shakespeare  cut ; 
71 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

Wherein  the  Graver  had  a  strife 
With  Nature,  to  outdo  the  Life : 
O  could  he  but  have  drawn  his  wit 
As  well  in  brass,  as  he  hath  hit 
His  face,  the  Print  would  then  surpass 
All  that  was  ever  writ  in  brass. 
But  since  he  cannot,  Reader,  look 
Not  on  his  Picture,  but  his  book. 

We  know  how  Browning  parodied  this : 

This  figure  that  thou  seest — tut ; 
Was  it  for  gentle  Shakespeare  put  ? 

But  what  does  Jonson  mean  ?  One  meaning  of 
"for"  is  "in  place  of."  In  place  of  gentle  Shake- 
speare was  put  this  thing,  and  if  the  artist  had 
been  a  little  more  successful  "the  print  would 
then  surpass  all  that  was  ever  writ  in  brass."  But 
under  the  circumstances  we  are  instructed  to  look 
not  at  the  picture  but  at  the  book.  This  seems  a 
very  curious  way  of  commending  the  picture,  and 
suggests  a  hoax — a  brazen  hoax. 

72 


TESTIMONY  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO 

A  contributor  to  Notes  and  Queries,  10th  S.  III., 
January  28,  1905,  who  writes  from  the  Middle 
Temple,  London,  paraphrases  these  verses  thus  : 

The  figure  or  portrait  opposite  was  cut  (en- 
graved) and  inserted  here  for  (instead,  or  in  place, 
of)  the  Gentle  Shakespeare  (the  Shakespeare  of 
the  following  Plays — Francis  Bacon,  who  was 
"gentle "both  in  birth  and  disposition). 

In  executing  it  the  engraver  endeavored  to  pro- 
duce a  likeness  more  lifelike  than  nature. 

O  could  he  have  drawn  his  wit  (the  Gentle 
Shakespeare's )  as  well  in  brass  as  he  has  hit  his 
face  (the  features  of  the  other),  the  print  would 
have  surpassed  in  beauty  any  engraving  before 
produced. 

But,  since  he  cannot  (or  could  not),  Reader, 
look  ( for  that  wit )  not  at  his  picture  ( the  Strat- 
ford man's  picture),  but  his  book  (the  Gentle 
Shakespeare's  book). 

But  Jonson's  connection  with  the  Folio  does  not 
end  here.  Following  the  Address  to  the  Read- 

73 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

ers  comes  his  splendid  trumpet  blast :  "  To  the 
Memory  of  my  Beloved  Master,  William  Shake- 
speare, and  what  he  has  left  us." 

"  I  confess,"  he  says,  "  thy  writings  to  be  such 
as  neither  man  nor  muse  can  praise  too  much," 
and  again : 

Leave  thee  alone  for  the  comparison 

Of  all,  that  insolent  Greece,  or  haughty  Rome 

Sent  forth,  or  since  did  from  their  ashes  come. 

These  lines  are  addressed,  of  course,  to  "  Shake- 
speare," that  is,  to  the  author  of  the  Plays.  It 
will  be  remembered  that,  at  or  about  the  time  of 
the  publication  of  the  First  Folio,  Jonson  was  one 
of  Bacon's  private  secretaries,  or  "  good  pens,"  as 
he  calls  them,  and  in  a  position  to  know  what  was 
going  on.  This  seems  to  bring  Bacon  pretty 
close  to,  at  least,  an  editorial  association  with  the 
Folio. 

At  Jonson's  death  he  left  a  book  in  manuscript 

74 


TESTIMONY  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO 

called  Timbre,  or  Discoveries  Made  upon  Men 
and  Nature.  It  contains  two  passages  which 
should  be  compared  with  this  poem.  The  first 
refers  to  Francis  Bacon,  and  he  says  of  him  that 
"  he  filled  up  all  numbers,  and  performed  that  in 
our  tongue  which  may  be  compared  or  preferred 
either  to  insolent  Greece  or  haughty  Rome  .  .  . 
so  that  he  may  be  named  and  stand  as  the  mark 
and  acme  of  our  language  ; "  exactly,  it  will  be  ob- 
served, what  he  had  previously  said  about  the  au- 
thor of  the  Shake-speare  plays,  while  of  William 
Shaksper,  the  player,  he  said  that  he  "loved  the 
man  and  honored  his  memory,"  but  that  "he 
flowed  with  that  facility  that  sometimes  it  was 
necessary  that  he  be  stopped — snuffed  out."  "  But 
he  redeemed  his  vices  with  his  virtues.  There 
was  ever  more  in  him  to  be  praised  than  par- 
doned." In  the  same  volume  he  enumerates  the 
greatest  "  wits  "  of  his  time.  The  list  is:  More, 
Wyatt,  Surrey,  Challoner,  Smith,  Eliot,  Gardiner, 

75 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

Sir  Nicholas  Bacon,  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  Hooker, 
Essex,  Raleigh,  Savile,  Sandys,  Egerton  and  Fran- 
cis Bacon.  Has  he  omitted  him  whom  he  de- 
clared to  be  the  greatest  of  all,  or  has  he  mentioned 
him  by  another  name  ? 

In  Discoveries  the  headline  to  the  note  on 
Shaksper  is  De  Shakespeare  Nostrafre] — our  fellow, 
or  companion,  Shakespeare.  In  the  lines  facing 
the  portrait  the  designation  is  "  The  Gentle  Shake- 
speare ; "  so  it  seems  that  in  Ben  Jonson's  mind 
there  were  two  "  Shakespeares,"  the  "  Gentle 
Shakespeare"  and  our  crony,  the  actor,  and  how 
differently  they  are  described  !  Look  on  this  pic- 
ture and  on  this. 

Nevertheless  the  tendency  shown  by  some  ad- 
vocates of  the  Baconian  theory  to  disparage  the 
personal  character  of  William  Shaksper  is  to  be 
deprecated  as  tending  to  provoke  unnecessary 
hostility  and  as  not  being  founded  on  known  facts. 
Jonson's  description  of  him  is  practically  the  only 

76 


TESTIMONY  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO 

contemporary  evidence  we  have.     In  full  it  is  as 
follows : 

De  Shakespeare  nostrat. — Augustus  in  Hat. — I  re- 
member, the  players  have  often  mentioned  it  as 
an  honor  to  Shakespeare,  that  in  his  writing 
(whatsoever  he  penned)  he  never  blotted  out  a 
line.  My  answer  hath  been,  would  he  had  blotted 
a  thousand.  Which  they  thought  a  malevolent 
speech.  I  had  not  told  posterity  this,  but  for 
their  ignorance,  who  chose  that  circumstance  to 
commend  their  friend  by,  wherein  he  most  faulted  ; 
and  to  justify  mine  own  candor ;  for  I  loved  the 
man  and  do  honor  his  memory,  on  this  side  idol- 
atry, as  much  as  any.  He  was,  indeed,  honest, 
and  of  an  open  and  free  nature ;  had  an  excellent 
phantasy,  brave  notions  and  gentle  expressions ; 
wherein  he  flowed  with  that  facility,  that  some- 
times it  was  necessary  he  should  be  stopped  :  Suf- 
flaminandus  erat,  as  Augustus  said  of  Haterius. 
His  wit  was  in  his  own  power,  would  the  rule  of 
it  had  been  so  too.  Many  times  he  fell  into  those 
things,  could  not  escape  laughter :  as  he  said  in 

77 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

the  person  of  Caesar,  one  speaking  to  him,  "  Caesar 
thou  dost  me  wrong."  He  replied,  "  Caesar  did 
never  wrong  but  with  just  cause,"  and  such  like 
which  were  ridiculous.  But  he  redeemed  his  vices 
with  his  virtues.  There  was  ever  more  in  him  to 
be  praised  than  to  be  pardoned. 

This  would  not  indicate  that  he  was  either  dis- 
honest or  ignorant.  He  appears  to  have  been  a 
genial  companion,  a  shrewd  business  man,  and  a 
most  skilful  theatrical  manager.  If  Bacon,  or  some 
other,  was  the  author  of  the  Plays,  Shaksper  was 
certainly  his  confidential  agent,  and  it  is  very  prob- 
able that  it  is  chiefly  by  his  agency  that  the  Plays 
have  been  preserved  to  us  and,  even  if  he  did  not 
write  them,  as  associated  with  their  production 
and  preservation,  his  name  should  be  forever  held 
in  honor. 

In  the  Address  to  the  Readers  Heminge  and 
Condell — or  whoever  wrote  the  address  signed  by 
them — say  that  they  have  so  published  the  Plays 
78 


TESTIMONY  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO 

that  "  as  where  before  you  were  abused  with  divers 
stolen  and  surreptitious  copies,  maimed  and  de- 
formed by  the  frauds  and  stealths  of  injurious  im- 
postors, that  exposed  them  ;  even  those  are  now 
offered  to  your  view,  cured  and  perfect  of  their 
limbs  and  all  the  rest,  absolute  in  their  numbers, 
as  he  conceived  them  .  .  .  and  what  he 
thought  he  uttered  with  that  easiness  that  we  have 
scarce  received  from  him  a  blot  in  his  papers." 

Now,  whatever  that  means,  it  does  not  mean, 
literally,  what  it  says,  as  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
the  printers  of  the  Folio  followed  as  their  copy, 
in  many  cases,  the  Quartos — the  "  stolen  and  sur- 
reptitious copies" — even  to  repeating  their  mis- 
prints, and  Ben  Jonson  in  his  introductory  poem 
says:  "  He  who  casts  to  write  a  living  line  must 
sweat  (such  as  thine  are)  and  strike  the  second 
heat  upon  the  Muses'  anvil,"  and  he  speaks  of  his 
"  well  turned  and  true  filed  lines."  This  is  hardly 
consistent  with  the  idea  that  the  Plays  were  struck 
79 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

off  at  a  white  heat  without  a  blot — an  erasure  or 
emendation — and,  besides,  we  know  in  the  cases 
of  Plays  that  ran  through  a  number  of  editions 
that  they  were  worked  over  many  times. 

On  January  22,  1621,  Bacon  celebrated  his  six- 
tieth birthday.  Jonson  was  present  and  read  a 
poem  beginning  thus : 

Hail,  happy  Genius  of  this  ancient  pile! 
How  comes  it  all  things  so  about  thee  smile  ? 
The  fire,  the  wine,  the  men  !  And  in  the  midst 
Thou  stand'st  as  if  some  mystery  thou  didst! 
Pardon,  I  read  it  in  thy  face — 

What  was  the  "  mystery  ? " 

In  connection  with  this  matter  of  Ben  Jonson's 
testimony,  I  will  call  attention  to  one  other  matter 
which,  while  it  has  been  sometimes  noticed,  has 
never  seemed  to  be  treated  as  fully  as  it  deserves. 
In  or  about  1601,  appeared  Ben  Jonson's  burles- 
que play,  The  Poetaster,  in  which  some  contem- 
porary is  held  up  to  ridicule  in  the  character  of 

80 


TESTIMONY  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO 

Ovid  the  Younger.  This  Ovid  is  a  young  lawyer 
or  law  student  of  Rome  in  the  time  of  Augustus, 
but  instead  of  applying  himself  to  the  law  he 
devotes  his  time  to  writing  poetry  and  stage  plays 
in  opposition  to  the  wishes  of  his  father  and  other 
friends  and  to  their  great  disgust.  This  caricature 
is  a  palpable  hit  at  young  Francis  Bacon,  whose 
lighter  literary  pursuits  were  strenuously  opposed 
by  his  mother,  his  uncle,  Lord  Burleigh,  and  by 
his  friend  Sir  Thomas  Bodley,  the  founder  of  the 
Bodleian  Library,  who  excluded  from  it  all  English 
dramatic  works.  Bacon  presented  Bodley  with  a 
copy  of  his  Cogita  et  Visa  in  1607,  and  Bodley,  in 
replying,  congratulated  Bacon  on  having  at  last 
made  choice  of  a  fit  subject  of  study,  "which 
course,"  he  added,  "  would  to  God — to  whisper  as 
much  into  your  ear — you  had  followed  at  the  first, 
when  you  fell  to  the  study  of  such  a  study  as  was 
not  worthy  such  a  student."  Moreover,  The 
Poetaster  is  filled  with  broad  or  covert  allusions  to 
81 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

the  earlier  Shake-speare  plays,  one  scene  in  parti- 
cular being  a  broad  burlesque  of  the  balcony  scene 
in  Romeo  and  Juliet.  Ovid  makes  love  to  Julia, 
the  daughter  of  the  Emperor  Augustus,  who  ap- 
pears at  a  window  above.  Ovid  quotes,  with  only 
slight  variations,  from  Romeo  and  Juliet  and  from 
Hamlet  and  other  Shake-speare  plays.  In  another 
place  he  is  represented  as  writing,  in  the  course  of 
his  poetic  effusions,  the  very  lines  that  appear  on 
the  title-page  of  Venus  and  Adonis,  though  they 
are  of  course  given  in  English  translation  : 

Kneele  hindes  to  trash  ;  me  let  bright  Phoebus  swell, 
With  cups  full  flowing  from  the  Muses'  well. 

No  explanation  has  been  given  of  this  burlesque 
except  on  the  theory  that  Francis  Bacon — or  some- 
one situated  exactly  as  he  was — wrote  the  Plays 
and  Poems.  A  fuller  account  of  this  curious  play 
and  its  application  to  the  theory  of  Baconian  au- 
thorship may  be  found  in  that  extremely  interest- 
82 


TESTIMONY  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO 

ing  little  volume,  Bacon-Shakespeare,  an  Essay,  by 
E.  W.  S.  (Smithson).  It  is  the  opinion  of  the 
author  of  Is  It  Shakespeare  ?  that  Bacon  as  the  au- 
thor of  poems  and  plays  is  also  referred  to  in  the 
character  of  Sir  John  Daw  in  Jonson's  Silent 
Woman.  All  these  are  matters  which  Shaksper- 
ians  tacitly  agree  to  ignore. 

Jonson's  attitude,  in  these  early  years,  seems  to 
have  been  anything  but  well  disposed  toward  Ba- 
con, to  whom  there  can  be  but  little  doubt  he  in- 
tended his  "  Cheveril"  Epigrams  to  apply: 

ON   CHEVERIL 

Cheveril  cries  out  my  verses  libels  are  ; 
And  threatens  the  Star-chamber  and  the  bar. 
What  are  thy  petulant  pleadings,  Cheveril,  then, 
That  quit'st  the  cause  so  oft,  and  rail'st  at  men. 

ON   CHEVERIL   THE   LAWYER 

No  cause,  nor  client  fat,  will  Cheveril  leese, 
But  as  they  come,  on  both  sides  he  takes  fees, 
83 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

And  pleaseth  both  ;  for  while  he  melts  his  grease, 
For   this;    that    wins,    for  whom    he   holds   his 
peace. 

A  Cheveril  conscience  is  one  easily  stretched 
like  a  kid  glove.  Jonson  probably  had  the  pro- 
fessional jealousy  toward  the  amateur  intruder  into 
the  domain  of  the  playwright.  His  feeling  for 
Bacon,  however,  underwent  a  great  change  in  later 
years,  before  the  time  when  he  wrote  of  him  that 
"he  hath  filled  up  all  numbers,  and  performed 
that  in  our  tongue,  which  may  be  compared  or 
preferred  either  to  insolent  Greece  or  haughty 
Rome.  .  .  .  Now  things  daily  fall,  wits  grow 
downward,  and  eloquence  grows  backward ;  so 
that  he  may  be  named  and  stand  as  the  mark  and 
acme  of  our  language." 

Among  contemporary  allusions  to  Shake-speare 

or  Shaksper  there  is  only  one,  so  far  as  I  can 

learn,  that  seems  to  tend  to  identify  them,  and 

that  is  in  The    Return    from    Parnassus,  a   play 

84 


TESTIMONY  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO 

acted  at  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge,  about 
1601,  in  which  Burbage  and  Kemp,  Shaksper's 
fellow-players,  appear  and  discuss  theatrical  and 
other  matters,  including  the  talents  of  the  "  Uni- 
versity Pens."  Kemp  says:  "Why  here's  our 
fellow  Shakespeare  puts  them  all  down,  ay  and 
Ben  Jonson  too.  O  that  Ben  is  a  pestilent  fellow  ; 
he  brought  up  Horace  giving  the  Poets  a  pill,* 
but  our  fellow  Shakespeare  hath  given  him  a  purge 
that  made  him  beray  his  credit."  The  author  of 
Is  It  Shakespeare?  believes  this  "  purge  "  to  be 
the  play  of  Troilus  and  Cressida. 

Now  here  does  seem,  for  once,  to  be  a  positive 
identification  of  Shaksper,  "our  fellow  Shake- 
speare," with  the  poet,  and  the  Shaksperians  make 
the  most  of  it.  The  Baconians  reply  that  there  is 
no  question  that  Shaksper  and  Shake-speare  were 
identified  in  the  popular  mind  at  the  time.  The 
Plays  were  known  as  Shakespeare's  plays  and 

*  An  allusion  to  a  scene  in  Jonson's  The  Poetaster. 

85 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

Shaksper  or  his  company  owned  and  presented 
them.  The  dialogue  in  The  Return  from  Parnas- 
sus proves  nothing  more  than  that  the  author 
shared  the  common  delusion  or,  knowing  better, 
preferred  to  keep  his  own  counsel. 

If  Ben  Jonson's  Epigram,  On  Poet-ape,  applies 
to  Shaksper  the  actor-manager,  as  is  usually  con- 
ceded, it  shows  very  clearly  what  Shaksper's  part 
was  in  the  production  of  the  Plays. 

Poor  Poet-ape  that  would  be  thought  our  chief, 
Whose  works  are  e'en  the  frippery  of  wit, 
From  brokerage  is  become  so  bold  a  thief, 
As  we  the  robb'd,  leave  rage,  and  pity  it. 
At  first  he  made  low  shifts,  would  pick  and  glean, 
Buy  the  reversion  of  old  plays  ;  now  grown 
To  little  wealth  and  credit  in  the  scene, 
He  takes  up  all,  makes  each  man's  wit  his  own, 
And  told  of  this  he  slights  it.     Tut,  such  crimes 
The  sluggish  gaping  auditor  devours. 
He  marks  not  whose  'twas  first,  and  aftertimes 
May  judge  it  to  be  his,  as  well  as  ours. 
86 


TESTIMONY  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO 

Fool !  as  if  half  eyes  will  not  know  a  fleece 
From  locks  of  wool,  or  shreds  from  the  whole 
piece. 

He  was  a  play-broker,  he  bought  up  the  rever- 
sions of  old  plays,  he  appropriated  the  wit  of  each, 
and,  when  remonstrated  with,  showed  perfect  in- 
difference— as  well  he  might  if  he  had  Bacon 
behind  him.  Jonson  at  least  thought  that  he, 
with  half  an  eye,  could  distinguish  the  shreds 
and  patches  of  the  manager  and  adapter  from 
"the  whole  piece"  of  the  supreme  poet.  And 
who  was  in  a  better  position  to  know  than  Ben 
Jonson? 


AN  ORTHODOX  DEFENSE 

Mr.  Andrew  Lang,  in  the  Study  called  The 
Shakespeare-Bacon  Imbroglio,  one  of  those  in- 
cluded in  the  book  called  The  Valet's  Tragedy 
and  other  Studies,  commences  his  defense  of  the 
orthodox  Shaksperian  position  by  quoting  with 
approval  a  certain  "  sage  "  to  the  effect  that  "there 
are  foolisher  fellows  than  the  Baconians — those 
who  argue  against  them;"  whereupon  Mr.  Lang 
proceeds  to  argue  against  them  to  the  extent  of 
forty-five  pages,  thus  giving  the  Baconians  the 
satisfaction  of  resting  in  the  assured  conviction 
that  they  are  less  foolish  than  Mr.  Lang,  which  as 
a  rule  is  not  foolish  at  all.  It  should  be  a  great 
consolation  to  them  either  to  receive  this  spon- 
taneous tribute  or  to  welcome  Mr.  Lang  into  their 
fellowship  of  "foolish  fellows." 

He  next  declares  that  "  on  the  other  hand,  ig- 
norance has  often  cherished  beliefs  which  science 
88 


AN  ORTHODOX  DEFENSE 

has  been  obliged  reluctantly  to  admit.  The  exis- 
tence of  meteorites  and  the  phenomena  of  hypno- 
tism were  familiar  to  the  ancient  world  and  to 
modern  peasants  while  philosophy  disdained  to 
investigate  them.  In  fact,  it  is  never  really  prudent 
to  overlook  a  widely  spread  opinion." 

This  has  been  my  main  contention  through  this 
series  of  papers,  but  it  leads  Mr.  Lang  to  a  most 
curious  non  sequitur.  "  Thus,"  he  says,  "  a  light  is 
thrown  on  the  nature  of  popular  delusions  " — like 
the  existence  of  meteorites  and  the  phenomena  of 
hypnotism,  we  are  left  to  suppose. 

The  fact  is — leaving  "modern  peasants"  out 
of  account,  as  they  probably  have  no  views  on  the 
subject  whatever — that  in  many  subjects,  like  the 
one  at  present  under  discussion,  the  generally  well 
informed  man  of  the  world,  who  draws  his  infor- 
mation from  all  available  sources,  is  in  a  better 
position  to  come  to  a  just  conclusion  than  is  the 
professional  scholar  or  other  specialist.  The  pro- 

89 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

fessional  scholar  is  a  specialist.  He  is  set  apart 
for  a  certain  purpose,  which  is  to  investigate  cer- 
tain facts  and  phenomena  and  report  his  results. 
It  is  to  him  other  men  must  go  to  get  these  facts 
as  they  need  them.  If  the  "scholar"  or  other 
specialist  cannot  pass  his  information  on  he  is — in 
that  capacity  at  least — useless.  Mr.  Lang  thinks 
that  none  but  scholars  should  venture  to  pro- 
nounce on  Shake-speare's  scholarship.  Well,  Mr. 
Churton  Collins  is  a  scholar  in  the  strictest  sense 
of  the  word  and  he  has  shown  conclusively  in  his 
elaborate  Studies  in  Shakespeare  that  the  author 
of  the  Plays  was  thoroughly  familiar  with  the 
Greek  and  Latin  classics  ;  it  is  not  necessary  to 
suppose  that  he  was  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word 
a  "  scholar ; "  nobody  claims  that  for  Bacon  in 
fact,  but  what  he  thought  he  might  require  he 
went  and  took,  and  he  always  seemed  to  know 
where  to  find  it. 

It  appears  that  it  was  Mr.  Lang  who  said  that 
90 


AN  ORTHODOX  DEFENSE 

"Hi  ludi,  tuiti  sibi,  Fr.  Bacono  nati"  " is  magnifi- 
cent but  it  is  not  Latin."  Of  course  there  is  no 
question  that  Mr.  Lang  understands  Latin,  but 
observe  what  queer  things  he  says  about  it.  Mr. 
Donnelly,  in  trying  to  establish  a  certain  parallel 
— the  precise  parallel  is  of  no  consequence,  no 
single  parallel  is — translated  three  lines  from  Cat- 
ullus— 

Soles  occidere  et  redire  possunt ; 
Nobis,  cum  semel  occidit  brevis  lux, 
Nox  est  perpetuo  una  dormienda — 
thus: 

The  lights  of  heaven  go  out  and  return  ; 
When  once  our  brief  candle  goes  out, 
One  night  is  to  be  perpetually  slept. 

But,  says  Mr.  Lang,  " soles  are  not  lights  and  brevis 
lux  is  not  a  candle."  They  are  not  ?  I  had  al- 
ways supposed,  when  I  read  in  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis  that  "  God  made  two  great  lights  ;  the 
greater  light  to  rule  the  day,  and  the  lesser  light  to 
91 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

rule  the  night,"  that  the  "  greater  light "  referred 
to  was  the  sun,  but  now  we  are  told  that  suns  are 
not  lights  !  As  for  brevis  lux,  I  suppose  it  will  be 
admitted  that  lux  is  a  flame  and  that  when  Mac- 
beth said,  "  Out,  out  brief  candle,"  he  contem- 
plated extinguishing  the  flame,  not  throwing  the 
candle  bodily  out  of  the  window.  This  is  really 
presuming  too  much  on  the  ignorance  of  the  Ba- 
conians. Having  now  discovered  Mr.  Lang's 
method  of  dealing  with  Latin,  I  can  breath  freely 
once  more  about  my  anagramatic  sentence.  But 
now  comes  another  beautiful  example  of  the  dis- 
ingenuousness  with  which  this  controversy  is 
conducted.  Mr.  Lang  says:  "Dr.  Platt,  by  ma- 
nipulating the  scraps  of  Latin  in  Love's  Labour's 
Lost,  extracts  'Hi  ludi,  tuiti  sibi,  Fr.  Bacono 
nati.'  "  Dr.  Platt  did  nothing  of  the  sort  as  any- 
body can  see  by  referring  to  page  twenty-four  of  this 
book.  The  sentence  was  "extracted  "  from  a  sin- 
gle word  containing  twenty-seven  letters  and  every 
92 


AN  ORTHODOX  DEFENSE 

single  one  of  them  was  used  and  used  only  once. 
Now,  as  I  cannot  suppose  that  Mr.  Lang  would 
intentionally  deceive  any  one,  I  am  driven  to  the 
conclusion  that  on  this  occasion  he  did  not  take 
the  trouble  to  inform  himself  about  the  matter  of 
which  he  was  talking — which  is  the  very  same 
laches  he  is  so  fond  of  fastening  upon  his  oppo- 
nents. I  hope  that  this  is  the  retort  courteous. 

Bacon's  Promus  or  Commonplace  book  has 
been  discussed  so  much  that  further  mention  of  it 
would  seem  to  be  unnecessary  if  it  were  not  for  a 
curious  perversion  which  Mr.  Lang  makes  of  an 
argument  which  has  been  drawn  from  it.  The 
book,  as  is  well  known,  is  a  commonplace  or 
memorandum  book  kept  by  Bacon,  and  in  it 
occur  thousands  of  words,  phrases  and  sentences 
which  appear  again  in  the  Plays.  Whether  they 
appear  elsewhere  is  beside  the  present  discussion. 
The  point  is  that  when  Mrs.  Pott  edited  the 
book  in  1883,  she  called  attention  to  one  single 

93 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

page,  page  111,  on  which  there  occur  these 
entries :  Rome,  Golden  sleep,  Uprouse,  The 
Larke ;  and  that  these  entries  were  suggestive  of 
notes  for  Romeo  and  Juliet,  two  passages  of  which 
will  occur  to  anyone : 

But  where  unbruised  youth  with  unstuff'd  brain 
Doth  couch  his  limbs,  there  golden  sleep  doth  reign  : 
Therefore  thy  earliness  doth  me  assure, 
Thou  art  up-rous'd  by  some  distemperature. 

and 

It  was  the  nightingale  and  not  the  lark, 
That  pierc'd  the  fearful  hollow  of  thine  ear. 

Mr.  Lang's  treatment  of  this  proposition  is  to 
ignore  it  and  in  place  of  it  to  give  an  impression 
that  Mrs.  Pott's  argument  is  that  the  common  oc- 
currence of  "golden  sleep"  and  "up-rouse"  in 
Bacon's  note  book,  and  in  Romeo  and  Juliet,  is  a 
proof  that  Bacon  wrote  the  play,  which  assumed 
contention  he  then  laughs  out  of  court.  Of  course 

94 


AN  ORTHODOX  DEFENSE 

no  such  contention  was  ever  made.  The  point  is 
the  curious  juxtaposition  of  the  words  beginning 
with  Rome — which  word  Mr.  Lang  entirely  ig- 
nores. Rome  with  the  mark  of  elision  spells 
Romeo.  As  William  D.  O'Connor  showed  years 
ago,  in  Hamlet's  Note-Book,  it  can  spell  nothing 
else — no  known  word  nor  known  proper  name. 
This  is  easily  tested  by  placing  each  of  the  letters 
of  the  alphabet  in  succession  after  Rome.  All  of 
this  Mr.  Lang  ignores.  It  is  easy  to  combat  your 
opponents'  arguments  if  you  supply  them  for 
yourself.  In  this  case  there  was  no  particular 
argument.  Attention  was  called  to  a  curious  co- 
incidence and  the  coincidence  is  still  unaccounted 
for.  For  all  I  know  Bacon  may  have  attended  a 
performance  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  and  taken  notes, 
but  what  strange  notes  to  take !  It  is  another 
thing  to  be  accounted  for,  that  is  all. 

According  to   Mr.  Lang,  the  Baconian  theory 
implies  the  belief  that  Bacon  would  for  five  or  six 
95 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

pounds  patch  up  and  revamp  an  old  play,  which 
he  thinks  is  very  absurd.  Well,  at  the  time  when 
Bacon  was  imprisoned  for  debt  it  is  probable  that 
he  would  have  found  five  or  six  pounds  very  con- 
venient. But  the  Baconian  theory  does  not  re- 
quire any  such  assumption.  That  Shake-speare 
produced  the  immortal  dramas  by  patching  up  the 
work  of  old  forgotten  playwrights  is  an  assump- 
tion of  the  orthodox  Shaksperians  though  they 
have  never  been  able  to  find  the  old  playwrights. 
The  Baconians  believe  that  when  the  Plays  show 
evidence  of  revision  that  the  author  has  revised 
his  own  work,  the  work  of  his  apprentice  years, 
which  would  be  the  natural  view  to  take  in  any 
such  case.  An  examination  of  Love's  Labour's 
Lost  shows  in  two  places  very  clearly  and  very  in- 
terestingly just  what  the  revision  was,  by  reason 
of  the  copyist  or  printer  having  left  in  the  old 
version  while  adding  the  new.  Here  is  one  ex- 
ample : 


AN  ORTHODOX  DEFENSE 

FIRST  VERSION 

From  women's  eyes  this  doctrine  I  derive  : 
They  are  the  ground,  the  books,  the  academes 
From  whence  doth  spring  the  true  Promethean  fire. 

REVISED  VERSION 

From  women's  eyes  this  doctrine  I  derive  : 
They  sparkle  still  the  right  Promethean  fire ; 
They  are  the  books,  the  arts,  the  academes 
That  show,  contain  and  nourish  all  the  world. 

Does  this  look  like  patching  up  and  revamping 
the  work  of  another  playwright  ?  It  is  hardly  fair 
for  the  Shaksperians  to  foist  their  theories  off  on 
the  Baconians  and  expect  the  Baconians  to  account 
for  them.  This  revamping  theory  seems  to  have 
been  invented  in  order  to  try  and  get  the  known 
career  of  the  actor  within  planetary  distance  of  the 
author.  That  Shaksper,  as  manager  of  the  theater, 
adapted  plays  may  readily  be  admitted,  but  that  is 
an  entirely  different  matter.  Besides,  why  the  as- 
sumption that  the  Plays  were  written  for  money  ? 
97 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

The  Baconians  are  not  responsible  for  that.  Says 
Grant  White — and  he  is  only  expressing  the  gen- 
erally received  opinion  : 

All  that  we  know  of  his  life  and  of  his  domestic 
career  leaves  us  no  room  for  doubt  that,  if  his  pub- 
lic had  preferred  it,  he  would  have  written  thirty 
seven  plays  like  Titus  Andronicus,  just  as  readily, 
though  not  as  willingly,  as  he  wrote  As  You  Like 
It,  King  Lear,  Hamlet  and  Othello. 

He  wrote  what  he  wrote  only  to  fill  the  theater 
and  his  own  pockets. 

It  is  not  unlikely  that  in  the  days  that  Bacon 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  "  Lombards",  the  five  or 
six  pounds — the  sum  Mr.  Lang  has  fixed  upon — 
would  have  been  very  acceptable  and  would  most 
undoubtedly  have  been  an  inducement  to  write ; 
but  in  viewing  the  Plays  en  masse  it  is  quite  evi- 
dent that  the  man  who  could  write  them  could  not 
help  writing  them  and  that  the  true  and  sufficient 
motive  was  the  glory  of  the  Creator  and  the  relief 
98 


AN  ORTHODOX  DEFENSE 

of  man's  estate  and  the  bestowal  of  a  priceless  and 
immortal  legacy  upon  all  the  sons  of  men. 

Then  our  critic  thinks  the  Baconian  theory  is 
reduced  to  an  absurdity  because  Bacon  would 
never  have  entrusted  his  precious  compositions  to 
a  raw  country  lout.  Of  course  not,  but  who 
painted  that  picture  ?  Not  the  Baconians  but  the 
orthodox  Shaksperian  biographers  themselves. 
Grant  White  said: 

The  biographer  of  Shakespeare  must  record 
these  facts,  because  the  literary  antiquaries  have 
unearthed,  produced  and  pitilessly  printed  them 
as  new  particulars  in  the  life  of  Shakespeare.  We 
hunger  and  we  receive  these  husks  ;  we  open  our 
mouths  for  food  and  we  break  our  teeth  against 
these  stones. 

The  Baconians,  so  far  as  they  have  accepted  the 
story,  accepted  it  as  they  found  it.     The  probabil- 
ity to  be  deduced  from  the  evidence  seems  to  be 
that  Shaksper  was  rather  deficient  in  book-learn- 
99 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

ing,  which  is  not  in  the  least  incompatible  with  his 
being  a  shrewd  business  man  and  good  theatrical 
manager  and  a  suitable  agent  for  Bacon — if  Bacon 
was  indeed  the  author — but  is  hardly  consistent 
with  his  writing  Hamlet  and  Lear.  Besides — 
think  of  it — the  author  of  Hamlet  allowing  his 
daughters  to  be  brought  up  without  being  taught 
to  write  !  That  fact  alone  is  sufficient  to  put  Mr. 
William  Shaksper  out  of  court. 

Mr.  Lang  thinks  it  is  presumptuous  for  those 
who  are  not  "  scholars  "  to  form  or  express  opin- 
ions on  the  matter  of  the  authorship  of  the  Plays. 
This  leads  him  into  a  curious  paradox — that  it  re- 
quires scholarship  to  form  an  opinion  of  plays 
which  he  thinks  it  required  no  scholarship  to 
write. 

I  have  not  selected  Mr.  Lang's  Study  for  criti- 
cism from  any  ill  will  to  Mr.  Lang  nor  because  I 
consider  it  more  unfair  or  unreasonable  than  others 
but  because  it  is  recent  and  typical.  The  argu- 

100 


AN  ORTHODOX  DEFENSE 

ment  for  the  Baconian  authorship  depends  upon  a 
vast  mass  of  circumstantial  evidence.  It  is  not 
a  chain  but  a  bundle  of  rods.  Whether  Jupiter 
can  break  it  or  not  remains  to  be  seen  ; "  but  to 
pull  out  one  or  two  of  the  weakest  of  the  rods 
from  the  bundle  and  triumphantly  proclaim  their 
weakness  does  not  materially  effect  the  strength  of 
the  case.  What  ought  to  be  sought  in  the  matter 
is  the  truth,  not  mere  controversial  success. 

When  Bacon's  Promus  was  edited  by  Mrs. 
Pott,  in  1883,  it  was  with  a  preface  by  Dr.  E.  A. 
Abbott,  who  has  never  been  suspected  of  heretical 
ideas  on  the  subject.  In  this  preface,  while  not 
accepting  the  editor's  views,  he  claimed  for  the 
book  the  greatest  value  and  interest  as  throwing 
light  on  the  growth  and  development  of  our 
language  during  the  most  important  period  of  its 
evolution  and  illustrating  Bacon's  connection  with 
them,  as  well  as  the  development  of  his  own  won- 
derful power  of  expression.  In  spite  of  all  this 
101 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

and  of  Dr.  Abbott's  endorsement  of  the  Promus 
as  a  most  important  document  entirely  apart  from 
the  question  of  the  authorship  of  Shake-speare,  it 
was  received  by  the  "  Scholars  "  with  a  unanimous 
burst  of  ridicule  and  abuse,  expressed  for  the  most 
part  in  terms  showing  that  they  had  not  even  ex- 
amined the  book  and  had  entirely  mistaken  its 
purport  and  purpose.  This  abuse  they  even  ex- 
tended to  Bacon  himself.  Only  last  year,  in  his 
Studies  in  Shakespeare,  Mr.  Churton  Collins  as- 
serts Bacon  to  have  been  a  man  "  without  a  spark 
of  genial  humor ;  that  in  his  voluminous  works 
there  is  no  trace  of  any  light  play  of  wit  and  fancy, 
of  any  profound  passion,  of  any  esthetic  enthus- 
iasm." 

If  it  had  not  been  for  the  acrimony  and  petulant 
peevishness  which  the  danger  threatening  their 
settled  teachings  provokes  would  Mr.  Collins  or 
any  other  man  of  letters  write  thus  of  one  of  whom 
Macaulay  declared  :  "  The  poetic  faculty  was  pow- 
102 


AN  ORTHODOX  DEFENSE 
erful  in  Bacon's  mind,  but  not,  like  his  wit,  so 
powerful  as  occasionally  to  usurp  the  place  of  his 
reason  and  to  tyrannize  over  the  whole  man. 
Much  of  Bacon's  life  was  passed  in  a  visionary 
world  "  ?  Of  whom  it  was  said  by  Shelley  :  "  Lord 
Bacon  was  a  poet.  His  language  has  a  sweet  and 
majestic  rhythm  which  satisfies  the  sense  no  less 
than  the  almost  superhuman  wisdom  of  his  philos- 
ophy satisfies  the  intellect.  It  is  a  strain  which 
distends  and  then  bursts  the  circumference  of  the 
reader's  mind,  and  pours  itself  forth  together  with 
it  into  the  universal  element  with  which  it  has 
perpetual  sympathy "  ?  Of  whom  Lord  Lytton 
said  :  "  Poetry  pervaded  the  thoughts,  it  inspired 
the  similes,  it  hymned  in  the  majestic  sentences  of 
the  wisest  of  mankind  "  ? 

But  let  us  listen  a  moment  to  the  great  Verulam 
himself : 

But  howsoever  these  things  are  thus  in  men's  de- 
praved judgements  and  affections,  yet  Truth,  which 
103 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

only  doth  judge  itself,  teacheth  that  the  inquiry  of 
Truth,  which  is  the  love-making  or  wooing  of  it ;  the 
knowledge  of  Truth,  which  is  the  presence  of  it ;  and 
the  belief  of  Truth,  which  is  the  enjoying  of  it ;  is  the 
sovereign  good  of  human  nature. 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  stand  upon  the  shore  and  to  see 
ships  tossed  upon  the  sea :  a  pleasure  to  stand  in  the 
window  of  a  castle  and  to  see  a  battle  and  the  adven- 
tures thereof  below  but  no  pleasure  is  comparable  to  the 
standing  upon  the  vantage  ground  of  Truth,  a  hill  not 
to  be  commanded,  and  where  the  air  is  always  clear 
and  serene,  and  to  see  the  errors  and  wanderings  and 
mists  and  tempests  in  the  vale  below  ;  so  always  that 
this  prospect  be  with  pity  and  not  with  swelling  or 
pride.  Certainly  it  is  heaven  upon  earth  to  have  a 
man's  mind  move  in  charity,  rest  in  providence  and 
turn  upon  the  poles  of  Truth. 


104 


DID  MARSTON  AND  HALL  READ  THE 
QUARTO  MONOGRAMS? 

In  1598,  John  Marston  published  two  books, 
one  known  as  Pigmalion's  Image  and  Certain 
Satyrs,  the  other,  The  Scourge  of  Villainie,  the 
latter  consisting  of  another  series  of  satires.  Mars- 
ton  and  Hall,  as  it  is  needless  to  say,  were  the 
rival  satirists  of  the  time,  attacking  each  other  and 
most  of  the  contemporary  writers  and  other  prom- 
inent people.  It  is  generally  conceded  that  a 
number  of  passages  in  the  Satires  refer  to  Shake- 
speare. That  Marston  was  familiar  with  Shake- 
speare's work  and  impressed  by  it  is  evident 
almost  at  a  glance.  Pygmalion's  Image  is  written 
in  the  unusual  meter  of  Venus  and  Adonis  and, 
in  some  appended  verses,  that  poem  is  directly 
referred  to  : 

So  Labeo  did  complaine  his  love  was  stone, 
Obdurate,  flinty,  so  relentlesse  none  ; 
105 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

Yet  Lynceus  knowes,  that  in  the  end  of  this, 
He  wrought  as  strange  a  metamorphosis. 

This  seems  to  be  a  sufficiently  clear  allusion  to  the 
lines  in  Venus  and  Adonis,  199-200 — 

Art  thou  obdurate,  flinty,  hard  as  steel, 

Nay,  more  than  flint,  for  stone  at  rain  relenteth  ? — 

and  to  the  strange  metamorphosis  at  the  end,  that 
of  Adonis  into  a  flower.  The  name  Labeo,  thus 
becomes  a  key  to  various  allusions  to  the  author 
of  the  Shake-speare  works  in  the  satires  of  both 
Marston  and  Hall.  A  fuller  discussion  of  this 
interesting  subject  may  be  found  in  the  second 
chapter  of  a  book  which  I  advise  all  interested  to 
read, the  Cambridge  Graduate's  Is  It  Shakespeare? 
Marston's  familiarity  with  Shake-speare  is  also 
shown  in  his  plays.  His  Antonio's  Revenge,  pub- 
lished in  1602,  may  almost  be  said  to  be  founded 
on  Hamlet,  much  of  the  plot  and  many  of  the  inci- 
dents being  taken  directly  from  it. 
106 


MARSTON  AND  HALL 

In  Shakespeariana  for  February  and  March, 
1884,  Mr.  Fleay  showed  that  Marston  drew  from 
or  alluded  to  Shake-speare  in  eleven  of  his  plays 
— to  say  nothing  of  his  other  writings. 

His  allusions  to  Shake-speare  are  as  a  rule 
satirical,  but  the  satire  is  not  so  virulent  as  that 
directed  to  some  other  contemporary  writers,  Ben 
Jonson  for  instance,  who  was  so  incensed  that  he 
beat  Marston  and  took  away  his  pistol.  Shake- 
speare took  a  gentler  but  perhaps  a  more  efficient 
vengeance  by  caricaturing  Marston  as  Malvolio. 
Marston's  abbreviated  signature  was  IO:  MA. 
Malvolio,  in  Twelfth  Night,  act  II,  scene  v,  after 
rinding  the  letter  dropped  in  his  way  by  Maria, 
reads  : 

I  may  command  where  I  adore ;  but  silence,  like 

a  Lucrece  knife 
With  bloodless  stroke  my  heart  doth  gore :    M, 

O,  A,  I,  doth  sway  my  life. 

Marston  is  represented  as  having  been  exceed- 

107 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

ingly  vain  and  pragmatical.  He  was  continually 
taking  to  task  other  writers  for  alleged  indecencies 
and  immoralities — qualities  in  which  his  own  writ- 
ings excelled.  In  devising  the  plot  against  Mal- 
volio,  Maria  says  :  "  Marry  sir,  sometimes  he  is 
a  kind  of  a  puritan,"  and  presently  adds  :  "  The 
devil  a  puritan  that  he  is,  or  anything  constantly 
but  a  time-pleaser ;  an  affectioned  ass,  that  cons 
state  without  book  and  utters  it  by  great  swarths  ; 
the  best  persuaded  of  himself,  so  crammed,  as  he 
thinks,  with  excellences,  that  it  is  his  grounds  of 
faith  that  all  that  look  on  him  love  him."  "  Some- 
times a  kind  of  a  puritan,"  would  seem  to  apply 
to  Marston  very  well.  Sir  Andrew's  threat  to 
beat  him  may  refer  to  the  beating  he  had  from 
Jonson  ;  anyhow  the  "  consonancy  of  the  sequel  " 
is  sufficiently  clear. 

Several  of  the  allusions  to  the  Shake-speare  works 
in  the  Satires  of  both  Marston  and  Hall  seem  to 
hint  at  a  concealed  authorship  of   the  Plays  and 
108 


MARSTON  AND  HALL 

Poems,  and  that  the  true  author  was  a  lawyer.  In 
one  line,  the  seventy  seventh  of  Marston's  Satire 
IV,  somebody,  apparently  the  true  Shake-speare, 
is  referred  to  as  Mediocria  firma,  which  is  about 
equivalent  to  spelling  out  Bacon  in  so  many  let- 
ters, as  Mediocria  firma  was  Bacon's  family  motto 
and  can  be  seen  under  his  coat  of  arms  surmount- 
ing most  of  his  portraits.  This  is  in  what  appears 
to  be  a  reply  on  the  part  of  Marston  to  the  attack 
of  Hall  and  was  published  shortly  after.  The 
passage  is  as  follows  : 

Fond  censurer  !  why  should  those  mirrors  seeme 
So  vile  to  thee,  which  better  judgements  deeme 
Exquisite  then,  and  in  our  polish'd  times 
May  run  for  sencefull  tollerable  lines  ? 
What,  not  mediocria  firma  from  thy  spight  ? 

In  that  same  year,  1598,  Hall,  in  the  first  Satire 
of  Book  IV,  had  written  : 

Labeo  is  whip't  and  laughs  me  in  the  face : 
Why  ?  for  I  smite  and  hide  the  galled-place. 

109 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

Gird  but  the  Cynick's  helmet  on  his  head, 
Cares  he  for  Talus,  or  his  flayle  of  lead  ? 
Long  as  the  crafty  Cuttle  lieth  sure 
In  the  black  Cloud  of  his  thicke  vomiture, 
Who  list  complaine  of  wronged  faith  or  fame, 
When  he  may  shift  it  to  another's  name  ? 

Marcus  Antistius  Labeo  was  a  prominent  law- 
yer in  Rome,  mentioned  by  Horace,  who  offended 
the  Emperor  Augustus  by  his  too  frank  speech. 
Now  Bacon  was  a  lawyer,  and,  as  is  well  known, 
had  given  offence  to  his  sovereign  by  his  defence 
of  the  privilege  of  Parliament  in  the  matter  of  the 
subsidies  bill  in  1593.  So  far  as  this  goes  the 
name  applies  very  well  to  Bacon.  To  be  sure  it 
does  not  go  very  far,  but  what  follows  is  sug- 
gestive. He  girds  on  the  Cynic's  helmet  and 
throws  out,  like  the  cuttlefish,  a  cloud  that  ob- 
scures himself  and  shifts  what  he  has  done  or 
written  to  another's  name.  Now  The  Honourable 
Order  of  The  Knights  of  the  Helmet  was  the 

110 


MARSTON  AND  HALL 

title  assumed  by  the  Gray's  Inn  revelers.  In 
their  revels  Bacon  was  known  to  have  a  promi- 
nent part,  and  it  was  during  the  Christmas  cele- 
bration in  1594  that  the  Comedy  of  Errors  was 
attempted  to  be  performed  at  Gray's  Inn  at  the 
time  when,  by  reason  of  overcrowding,  so  much 
confusion  ensued  that  the  Ambassador  from  the 
Inner  Temple  withdrew  with  his  train  in  discon- 
tent, "  so  that  the  night  was  begun  and  continued 
to  the  end  in  nothing  but  confusion  and  errors : 
whereupon  it  was  ever  afterwards  called  the  Night 
of  Errors." 

Some  critics  have  tried  to  identify  Hall's  Labeo 
with  Marston  himself,  but  this  seems  impossible 
because  at  that  time  Marston  had  published  noth- 
ing and  it  is  certainly  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
by  Labeo  Hall  and  Marston  referred  to  the  same 
person.  If  this  is  so,  how  does  it  happen  that  the 
Labeo  whom  we  found  associated  with  Venus  and 
Adonis  is  spoken  of  as  girding  on  the  Cynic's 
ill 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

Helmet,  hiding  himself  like  a  cuttlefish  and  shift- 
ing what  he  has  done  to  another's  name  ? 

I  have  refrained  from  treating  this  branch  of 
the  subject  more  fully  because  the  Cambridge 
Graduate  has  already  done  so,  but  I  have  referred 
to  it  as  introductory  to  a  phase  of  the  matter  of 
which  he  does  indee,d  speak  but  to  which  he  gives 
an  interpretation  which — to  me  at  least — seems 
less  satisfactory  than  the  one  presently  to  be  of- 
f  erred. 

In  The  Scourge  of  Villainy,  Satire  IX,  which 
carries  the  headline,  "Here's  a  Toy  to  mocke  an  Ape 
indeede"  occur  these  lines  : 

My  soule  adores  judiciall  schollership  ; 
But  when  to  servile  imitatorship 
Some  spruce  Athenian  pen  is  prentized, 
Tis  worse  than  apish.     Fie  !  be  not  flattered 
With  seeming  worth  !     Fond  affectation 
Befits  an  ape,  and  mumping  Babilon. 
O  what  a  tricksie,  lerned,  nicking  strain 
112 


MARSTON  AND  HALL 

Is  this  applauded,  senseless,  modern  vain ! 
When  late  I  heard  it  from  sage  Mutius  lips, 
How  ill,  methought,  such  wanton  jiggin  skips 
Beseem'd  his  graver  speech.     "Farre  fly  thy  fame, 
Most,  most  of  me  beloved  !  whose  silent  name 
One  letter  bounds.     Thy  true  judiciall  stile 
I  ever  honour ;  and,  if  my  love  beguile 
Not  much  my  hopes,  then  thy  unvalued  worth 
Shall  mount  faire  place, when  apes  are  turned  forth." 

Praise  from  Marston  for  anyone  is  very  rare 
indeed,  but  who  can  be  the  subject  of  this  eulo- 
gium  blended  with  reproof  ?  Well,  he  evidently 
has  the  following  characteristics:  He  has  "judi- 
cial scholarship  "  and  a  "  spruce  Athenian  pen  " — 
that  is,  the  pen  of  a  university  man — but  is  "pren- 
ticed"  to  "  imitatorship,"  which  is  "worse  than 
apish."  His  "wanton  jiggin  skips,"  so  Marston 
thought,  did  not  beseem  "  his  graver  speech ; " 
but  unless  the  writer's  hopes  were  beguiled  by 
his  love, 

113 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

"  then  thy  unvalued  worth 
Shall  mount  faire  place, when  apes  are  turned  forth." 

Apes  was  a  frequent  term  of  reproach  for  play- 
actors, so  it  is  here  pretty  evident  that  the  person 
addressed,  one  of  judicial  scholarship  and  having 
a  university  education,  is  debasing  his  talents  by 
writing  for  the  stage  in  a  manner  which  fails  to 
meet  Marston's  full  approval,  and  his  name  is 
silent,  /'.  e.,  concealed.  If  Bacon  were  writing  for 
the  stage  it  would  fit  him  very  well,  but  of  course 
we  know  there  were  others  writing  for  the  stage 
whom  it  would  fit  except  as  to  the  "  silent  name." 
But  we  know  of  Marston's  allusions  to  Shake- 
speare and  to  Mediocria  frrna,  so  we  naturally 
think  of  them.  But  what  about  that  "  silent  name 
one  letter  bounds  ?  "  Marston  is  nothing  if  not 
sphynx-like.  The  Mediocria  firma  puzzle  was 
comparatively  easy.  Let  others  make  their  guesses 
at  this.  Here  is  mine  :  The  silent  name — Mutius 
again  suggests  silence — bounded  by  one  letter  is 
114 


MARSTON  AND  HALL 

nothing  else  than  Bacon's  monogram  in  the  Quar- 
tos. For  what  is  a  monogram  but  a  single  letter 
or  character  bounding  a  name  ?  "  Monos — alone  : 
gramma — a  letter.  A  character  consisting  of  sev- 
eral letters  in  one."  That  is  the  way  it  is  given 
in  the  Century  Dictionary. 

The    Cambridge    Graduate    suggests    that   this 
may  refer  to  the  F  in  the  monogram 

FBR 

at  the  beginning  of  Lucrece,  but  the  F  can  hardly 
be  said  to  bound  the  name  in  that  case,  whereas 
in  the  Quarto  monograms  the  name  is  entirely 
bounded  or  enclosed  in  a  single  character. 

Perhaps  somebody  better  versed  in  the  literary 
gossip  of  those  days — my  ignorance  has  no  bear- 
ing on  the  problem — can  make  a  better  guess,  but 
until  I  hear  of  it,  I  shall  adhere  to  mine,  and  if  my 
guess  is  right,  one  man  at  least,  as  early  as  1598, 
had  read  this  particular  cryptogram. 
115 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

In  fact,  unless  the  monograms  in  the  Quartos 
are  mere  accidental  combinations  of  letters  it  would 
appear  that  the  passage  quoted  is  a  most  evident 
reference  to  it.  Of  course  some  other  explanation 
may  be  found,  but  there  are  so  many  things  in 
need  of  explanation. 


116 


AN  AFTERWORD 

I  am  told  by  a  correspondent  that  there  is  no 
need  for  the  orthodox  Shaksperians  to  answer 
questions  ;  that  they  are  in  full  possession  and 
that  any  child  can  ask  puzzling  questions.  Well, 
the  Shaksperians  are  in  possession,  but  not  in 
undisturbed  possession,  and  it  does  not  indicate 
much  confidence  in  one's  title  to  refuse  to  permit 
it  to  be  examined.  As  for  the  proposition  in  re- 
gard to  the  child's  questions,  it  reminds  me  of  a  re- 
cent newspaper  story.  A  little  boy's  mother  says 
to  him  :  "  Willie,  you  must  stop  asking  your  father 
questions.  Don't  you  see  they  annoy  him  ?  "  To 
which  the  boy  replies :  "  No'm,  it  ain't  my  ques- 
tions that  annoy  him.  It's  the  answers  he  can't 
give  that  make  him  mad."  Perhaps,  after  all, 
children's  questions  blaze  the  way  to  human  en- 
lightenment, and  we  have  long  ago  heard  out  of 
whose  mouths  wisdom  is  ordained. 

117 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

In  this  little  book  I  have  endeavored  to  set 
forth  some  of  the  facts  encountered  in  the  course 
of  my  reading,  tending  to  connect  the  name  of 
Francis  Bacon  with  the  Plays  and  Poems  known 
as  Shake-speare's.  Their  meaning,  their  interpre- 
tation, their  bearing  upon  the  authorship  of  those 
immortal  works,  I  leave  to  the  reader.  They  are 
not  offered  in  jest  but  they  resemble  a  jest  in  that 
their  prosperity  lies  in  the  ear  of  him  wrho  hears 
them,  never  in  the  tongue  of  him  who  utters  them. 
The  question  raised  is  one  not  to  be  dismissed  by 
taunts  nor  scoffs  nor  jeers.  I  have  no  personal 
sensitiveness,  but  taunts,  scoffs  and  jeers  do  not 
aid  in  the  elucidation  of  the  problem  and  we  want 
the  truth. 

The  world  will  not  be  forever  satisfied  with 
those  two  putforths  of  Pope — rf  The  brightest, 
wisest,  meanest  of  mankind,"  and  "  For  gain,  not 
glory,  winged  his  roving  flight  and  grew  immortal 
in  his  own  despite."  They  have  been  repeated 
118 


AN  AFTERWORD 

parrot-like  ad  nauseum.  We  want  the  truth.  We 
want  to  know  the  mighty  mind  behind  the  mighty 
work.  "  Cui  bonol"  says  one,  "we  have  the 
Plays."  Yes,  thank  God  !  we  have  the  Plays,  but 
we  want  more.  We  want  to  know  whence  they 
came,  what  mind  they  represent,  in  what  granite 
their  foothold  is  tenoned  and  mortised,  whether 
they  represent  a  successful  attempt  to  pack  the 
theater  and  acquire  a  competency  and  a  coat  of 
arms  ;  or  whether  they  are  the  outpourings  of  a 
soul  bent  upon  the  glory  of  the  Creator  and  the 
relief  of  Man's  estate. 

Unseen,  in  the  great  minster-dome  of  time, 
Whose  shafts  are  centuries,  its  spangled  roof 

The  vaulted  universe,  our  Master  sits, 
And  organ-voices,  like  a  far-off  chime, 

Roll  through  the  aisles  of  thought ;  the  sunlight  flits 
From  arch  to  arch,  and  as  he  sits  aloof, 
Kings,  Heroes,  Priests,  in  concourse  vast,  sublime, 
119 


BACON  CRYPTOGRAMS 

Glances  of  love  and  cries  from  battle  field, 
His  wizard  power  breathes  on  the  living  air. 

Warm  faces  gleam  and  pass ; — child,  woman,  many 
In  the  long  multitude,  but  he,  concealed, 

Our  bard  eludes  us ;  vainly  each  face  we  scan, 
It  is  not  he, — his  features  are  not  there, 
But  being  thus  hid  his  greatness  is  revealed* 

*  F.  G.  Scott  in  Shattifrariana,  Novtmktr,  rS&S 


120 


NOTES 

PAGE  16. — "  Honorificabilitudinitatibui . " 

Concerning  the  translation  of  the  anagram,  a  correspondent  writes 
to  me  from  the  Middle  Temple,  London.  "  I  think  tuiti  sibi  may 
be  rendered  freely  but  legitimately,  'their  own  guardians,'  and  so 
the  whole  passage  may  be  read :  '  These  plays,  the  offspring  [or 
children]  of  Francis  Bacon  [are]  their  own  guardians.'  Now  please 
compare  this  with  the  phrase  in  the  Epistle  Dedicatorie  of  the  Folio  : 
'  W^e  have  done  an  office  to  the  dead  to  procure  his  orphans  guard- 
ians' — his  orphans,  the  children,  to  which  before  there  were  no 
guardians — not  having  been  acknowledged  by  their  parent.  There 
seems  a  close  connection  between  the  two  phrases,  and  this  point,  I 
think,  strengthens  your  position."  The  trouble  in  the  mind  of 
Mr.  Lang  and  others  probably  arises  from  the  use  of  "-tuitpf  "  as  a 
passive  and  not  a  deponent  verb,  but  I  am  quite  sure  that  this  usage  > 
has  classical  authority. 

PAGE  31. — "  What  is  Ab  speld  backward  ivitA  a  horn  on  his 
head?  " 

As  I  am  seeking  information  and  not  trying  to  uphold  a  thesis,  I 
will  offer  a  suggestion  as  to  a  possible — but  to  my  mind  a  very  im- 
probable— explanation  of  the  occurrence  of  this  riddle  in  the  text. 
A  writer  in  Shakespeariana  for  December,  1883,  suggested  that 
Holofernes  was  intended  as  a  caricature  of  Bacon.  If  that  were  a 
fact  of  course  it  would  account  for  the  bringing  in  of  his  name  in 
this  connection.  The  resemblance,  however,  seems  to  be  limited 
to  the  facts  that  Bacon  was  a  learned  man  and  that  Holofernes  pre- 
tended to  be  one,  and  the  suggestion  is  so  very  far-fetched  that  I 
can  hardly  think  that  the  writer  made  it  in  earnest,  but  rather  that 
he  meant  it  as  a  joke  on  the  Baconians. 

121 


That  Bacon  associated  the  word  "  horn  "  with  a  curved  line  is 
manifest  from  his  Sylva  Sylvarum,  section  132  :  "  It  would  be  tried 
how,  and  with  what  proportion  of  disadvantage,  the  voice  will  be 
carried  in  an  horn,  which  is  a  line  arched." 

PAGE  64. — "  That  Jonson  ivas  at  or  about  this  time  one  of  Bacon's 
secretaries.'''' 

Mr.  John  Churton  Collins  is  a  scholar.  That  is  admitted  by  all. 
In  his  Studies  in  Shakespeare,  1904,  pp.  351-2,  he  says :  "  Equally 
unwarrantable  and  baseless  are  Dr.  Webb's  assertions  about  the 
relations  between  Ben  Jonson  and  Bacon.  '  It  is  probable,'  he  says, 
'  that  Jonson  assisted  Bacon  in  the  preparation  of  the  Novum  Or- 
ganum.*  It  is  improbable,  and  in  the  highest  degree  improbable, 
that  Ben  Jonson  had  anything  to  do  with  the  Novum  Organum. 
'It  is  an  undoubted  fact,'  continues  Dr.  Webb,  'that  the  Latin  of 
the  De  Augmentis,  which  was  published  in  1623,  was  the  work  of 
Jonson.'  .  .  .  There  is  not  a  particle  of  evidence  that  Jonson 
gave  the  smallest  assistance  to  Bacon  in  translating  any  of  his  works 
into  Latin."  And  in  a  footnote  he  adds  :  "  Probably  the  explana- 
tion is  given  by  Tenison,  Baconiana,  p.  25,  namely,  that  Bacon 
had  assistance  in  translation,  re-writing,  or,  at  least,  carefully  revis- 
ing it  himself.  The  only  translator  named  is  Herbert.  Hobbes  is 
also  said  to  have  assisted  him." 

Turning  to  Archbishop  Tenison's  Introduction  to  Baconiana  to 
which  Mr.  Collins  refers  we  find,  on  p.  25,  nothing  related  to  the 
subject ;  on  p.  24,  however,  is  this :  "  Afterwards  he  enlarged 
the  second  of  those  two  discourses,  [  The  Advancement  of  Learn- 
ing] which  contained  especially  the  above  said  Partition,  and  di- 
vided the  matter  into  eight  books,  and,  knowing  that  this  work  was 
desired  beyond  the  Seas,  and  being  also  aware  that  books  written 
in  a  modern  language,  which  receiveth  much  change,  in  a  few  years, 

122 


were  out  of  use  ;  he  caused  that  part  of  it  which  he  had  written  in 
English,  to  be  translated  into  the  Latin  tongue,  by  Mr.  Herbert,  and 
some  others,  who  were  esteemed  masters  in  the  Roman  eloquence." 
On  p.  60,  of  the  same  Introduction,  we  find,  referring  to  Bacon's 
Apothegms  and  Essays,  this :  "  His  Lordship  wrote  them  in  the 
English  tongue,  and  enlarged  them  as  occasion  served,  and  at  last 
added  to  them  the  Colours  of  Good  and  Evil,  which  are  likewise 
found  in  his  book  De  Augmentis.  The  Latin  translation  of  them 
was  a  work  performed  by  divers  hands ;  by  those  of  Doctor  Hacket 
(late  Bishop  of  Lichfield),  Mr.  Benjamin  Johnson  (the  learned  and 
judicious  poet)  and  some  others  whose  names  I  once  heard  from 
Dr.  Ranvley,  but  I  cannot  recal  them." 
So  much  for  Mr.  Collins'  ipse  dixit  \ 


123 


NO   LONGER   MOURN    FOR   ME  WHEN  I  AM  DEAD 

THAN  YOU  SHALL  HEAR  THE  SURLY  SULLEN  BELL 

GIVE  WARNING  TO  THE  WORLD  THAT  I  AM  FLED 

FROM  THIS  VILE  WORLD,  WITH  VILEST  WORMS  TO  DWELL: 

NAY,  IF  YOU  READ  THIS  LINE,  REMEMBER  NOT 

THE  HAND  THAT  WRIT  IT;  FOR  I  LOVE  YOU  SO, 

THAT  I  IN  YOUR  SWEET  THOUGHTS  WOULD  BE  FORGOT 

IF  THINKING  ON  ME  THEN  SHOULD  MAKE  YOU  WOE. 

O,  IF,  I  SAY,  YOU  LOOK  UPON  THIS  VERSE 

WHEN  I  PERHAPS  COMPOUNDED  AM  WITH  CLAY, 

DO  NOT  SO  MUCH  AS  MY  POOR  NAME  REHEARSE, 

BUT  LET  YOUR  LOVE   EVEN  WITH  MY  LIFE  DECAY; 

LEST  THE  WISE  WORLD  SHOULD  LOOK  INTO  YOUR  MOAN, 

AND  MOCK  YOU  WITH  ME  AFTER  I  AM  GONE. 

SHAKE-SPEARE. 


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